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Whom am I speaking with?

olark.com

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Re: Whom am I speaking with?

#11
post #5
post #2

I can't decide if the "Whom" in the title is a troll or not. At least the article gets it right.

I can't decide if this comment is a troll or not. "Whom" is grammatically correct.

It wasn't a troll, but you're correct. The word order apparently caused my brain to spasm.

Re: Whom am I speaking with?

#12

The winner is: With whom am I speaking? You wouldn't say, "The car am I driving in?". And you should avoid dangling prepositions. If your sentence (or clause) ends in a preposition, it is either extraneous, or your sentence requires rewording.

From the Internet somewhere:

On his first day at Harvard, a young freshman from Georgia was exploring the campus and, in his southern drawl, asked an older student: “Can you please tell me where the library is at?” The student looked down his nose and and said, in his New England accent, “At Harvard, we don’t end our sentences in a proposition.” The freshman replied. “Pardon me. Can you please tell me where the library is at, jackass?”

Re: Whom am I speaking with?

#13

The winner is: With whom am I speaking? You wouldn't say, "The car am I driving in?". And you should avoid dangling prepositions. If your sentence (or clause) ends in a preposition, it is either extraneous, or your sentence requires rewording.

But you might say "Which car am I driving in?"

Re: Whom am I speaking with?

#14
post #12

The winner is: With whom am I speaking? You wouldn't say, "The car am I driving in?". And you should avoid dangling prepositions. If your sentence (or clause) ends in a preposition, it is either extraneous, or your sentence requires rewording.

From the Internet somewhere: On his first day at Harvard, a young freshman from Georgia was exploring the campus and, in his southern drawl, asked an older student: “Can you please tell me where the library is at?” The student looked down his nose and and said, in his New England accent, “At Harvard, we don’t end our sentences in a proposition.” The freshman replied. “Pardon me. Can you please tell me where the libra…

Quoting (possibly [1]) the great Winston Churchill, “This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put.”

[1] http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/churchill.html

Re: Whom am I speaking with?

#15

The winner is: With whom am I speaking? You wouldn't say, "The car am I driving in?". And you should avoid dangling prepositions. If your sentence (or clause) ends in a preposition, it is either extraneous, or your sentence requires rewording.

Personally, I find 'dangling prepositions' fine in spoken English, because intonation can overcome their awkwardness. I try to avoid writing dangling prepositions, and I find reading them to be slightly jarring.

Re: Whom am I speaking with?

#16

The winner is: With whom am I speaking? You wouldn't say, "The car am I driving in?". And you should avoid dangling prepositions. If your sentence (or clause) ends in a preposition, it is either extraneous, or your sentence requires rewording.

If you're pretending that English is a Romance language, that's a valid concern.

Alternately, just go with "Who am I talking to?"

Re: Whom am I speaking with?

#17
post #9
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't decide if this comment is a troll or not. "Whom" is grammatically correct.

I think it sounds odd because it's disconnected from its preposition. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever heard a sentence starting with "whom."

"Whom shall I fear?"

Re: Whom am I speaking with?

#18

The winner is: With whom am I speaking? You wouldn't say, "The car am I driving in?". And you should avoid dangling prepositions. If your sentence (or clause) ends in a preposition, it is either extraneous, or your sentence requires rewording.

And you should avoid dangling prepositions.

You should avoid dangling prepositions if you are speaking in Latin. Then again if you are speaking Latin, ALL dangling prepositions will intuitively sound so wrong that you'll never make them.

If you are speaking English, they are perfectly fine. Some people a long time ago decided Latin was the bee's knees and English grammar ought to mimic Latin grammar. This is nonsense.

But you can keep up the nonsense as a way to show off your education (superior social rank).

Re: Whom am I speaking with?

#19

The winner is: With whom am I speaking? You wouldn't say, "The car am I driving in?". And you should avoid dangling prepositions. If your sentence (or clause) ends in a preposition, it is either extraneous, or your sentence requires rewording.

Terminal prepositions are poor Latin, but they are perfectly acceptable English. The prejudice against terminal prepositions (and split infinitives, as well as such abominations as the s in island) came from a period in English linguistics where a bunch of grammarians thought that English wasn't dignified enough, and tried to pretend that it was a Romance language by shoehorning the language into awkward and ungainly shapes that faintly resemble Latin. The language of Shakespeare is dignified enough for me, without the groundless prescriptivist contortions. He, like many authors since then, has found that the natural aesthetic flow of English will sometimes (not always) result in the preposition most naturally falling at the end of a clause. When that situation arises, take the opportunity to celebrate the uniqueness of your native tongue.

Re: Whom am I speaking with?

#20

The winner is: With whom am I speaking? You wouldn't say, "The car am I driving in?". And you should avoid dangling prepositions. If your sentence (or clause) ends in a preposition, it is either extraneous, or your sentence requires rewording.

But you might say "Which car am I driving in?"

I think the majority of Americans would say "Which car am I driving in?" However, something makes me think the majority of Britons might actually say "In which car am I driving?" Am I the only one thinking this?
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