"THAN WHOM" AND GRAMMARIANS' INEPTITUDE

@ 1998 by Orchid Land Publications

[upgraded 5-1-99]

      As if treatments of who and whom in  grammar books didn't offer enough ineptitude (CLICK here for some of many things that can could be said on this point), their making than whom an "exception" to their rules for using whom bears particular scrutiny for the insights it provides into their methodology.   Leaving aside the difference between French que moi ("than me"--which no one considers ungrammatical in French) and Germanic als ich (a German pattern, they deludedly insist, which English should follow), it is obvious that if we just take English as it is--the normal use of "than me, than them, than her," etc.--certain conclusions follow:    Than is as prepositional as after and before--which also can be either prepositions or conjunctions--and than whom is just as grammatical as "than me" or "after me" in normal English--but only IF, for the sake of the argument, one accept the grammarians' misguided rules concerning the use of whom and their belief that it is the object "case" of who in the first place.   Only a deluded belief that English is Germanic would make one try to force than into the exclusive role of a conjunction or require whom to be used as objects of prepositions (except in the few instances when both preposition and who are moved to the front of the clause).    This example says worlds about how grammarians don't think.

CLICK HERE FOR WHOM AND FOREGROUNDING


   Search this site    powered by FreeFind
   

Click to add search to YOUR web site!

Hits on this website since 11-22-98