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Whom am I speaking with?

olark.com

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Re: Whom am I speaking with?

#41
post #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 ungain…

Right. And just to drive the nail in a bit deeper: ending a sentence with a preposition is a grammatical construction that English gets from its roots as a Germanic language. German has what are called "separable verbs" where prepositions are combined with verb roots to create a new verb. In certain cases, the preposition prefix is split off of the verb and placed at the end of the sentence. The preposition must come at the end of the sentence in order to be grammatical. You can see remnants of separable verbs in English:

"I passed the man in the red hat by." pass-by

"I threw all of my old, useless papers out." throw-out

To repeat the parent's point: the stricture against ending a sentence with a preposition is simply a bias for grammatical structures that English inherited from Latin (through French) and against structures inherited from German.

The rule against splitting infinitives falls into the same category. It is not possible to split an infinitive in Latin because infinitives aren't made up to two words.

Again, these two rules (and others like them) are about biases, not about grammatical correctness or even clarity of communication. When you say "Who am I speaking with?" and "To boldly go where no man has gone before.", no one is actually left scratching their heads and thinking "I wonder what he means?"

Re: Whom am I speaking with?

#43
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're pretending that English is a Romance language, that's a valid concern. Alternately, just go with "Who am I talking to?"

That doesn't solve anything - "to" is still a preposition and the "Who" in your sentence should still be "Whom".

1) Again, the preposition isn't a problem.

2) Then use "whom" if you like. I really can't be bothered to care, as the purpose of language is communication, not structural pedantry. Remember your Elements of Style - "Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous" - and note how even presumably well-educated people here find "whom" awkward and stilted in that usage.

Re: Whom am I speaking with?

#44
post #38
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was the traditional rule, but in modern English, "whom" is a particularly marked usage anywhere except as the immediate object of a pronoun. "With whom am I speaking?" sounds formal but fine; "Who am I speaking with?" (or "...to?") is also fine. The form given in the title here is at best overly formal and stilted. What makes it weird is that it mixes the formal not-after-a-preposition "whom" with a sentence-end…

Right. "With whom am I speaking"? sounds stuffy at the beach. "Who am I speaking with?" sounds lazy at the opera. "Whom am I speaking with?" just sounds confused. A similar example that annoys me is the American pronunciation of the wine Pinot Noir ("PEE-no NWAR"). I say make up your mind. It is either "PEE-no NWA" as in French, or "PEE-not NWAR". The mixed pronunciation just sounds confused. Plus, it goes great with…

> "PEE-no NWA" as in French

Unless the French language has changed since I lived there, Noir would be pronounced NWARhh, with a gutteral R.

Re: Whom am I speaking with?

#45
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ungain…

Right. And just to drive the nail in a bit deeper: ending a sentence with a preposition is a grammatical construction that English gets from its roots as a Germanic language. German has what are called "separable verbs" where prepositions are combined with verb roots to create a new verb. In certain cases, the preposition prefix is split off of the verb and placed at the end of the sentence. The preposition must come…

I would never say either of those sentences.

"I passed by the man in the red hat."

"I threw out all of my old, useless papers."

Both of those not only keep the preposition away from the end of the sentence and keep it near the verb to which it belongs, but most importantly they sound more natural.

Your example of "Who am I speaking with?" follows this same pattern -- "with" is kept next to the verb "speaking".

Re: Whom am I speaking with?

#46
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely, that's why Olark has been firmly sitting on my AdBlock blacklist from the first time I ran into them.

Do you also block Google Analytics?

You can block them and many, many more with Ghostery. I've installed it on all of my computers/browsers.

http://www.ghostery.com/

Re: Whom am I speaking with?

#47
post #44
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. "With whom am I speaking"? sounds stuffy at the beach. "Who am I speaking with?" sounds lazy at the opera. "Whom am I speaking with?" just sounds confused. A similar example that annoys me is the American pronunciation of the wine Pinot Noir ("PEE-no NWAR"). I say make up your mind. It is either "PEE-no NWA" as in French, or "PEE-not NWAR". The mixed pronunciation just sounds confused. Plus, it goes great with…

> "PEE-no NWA" as in French Unless the French language has changed since I lived there, Noir would be pronounced NWARhh, with a gutteral R.

Ok, there is some kind of faint R in the French, but it definitely doesn't ryhme with "see no star".

English: http://inogolo.com/pronunciation/Pinot%20Noir French: http://www.forvo.com/word/pinot_noir/#fr

Re: Whom am I speaking with?

#48
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you also block Google Analytics?

You can block them and many, many more with Ghostery. I've installed it on all of my computers/browsers. http://www.ghostery.com/

  > Ghostery, a service of Evidon, Inc. All rights reserved.
  > http://www.evidon.com, formerly Better Advertising.
Thanks, I appreciate the irony, but No

Re: Whom am I speaking with?

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can block them and many, many more with Ghostery. I've installed it on all of my computers/browsers. http://www.ghostery.com/

> Ghostery, a service of Evidon, Inc. All rights reserved. > http://www.evidon.com, formerly Better Advertising. Thanks, I appreciate the irony, but No

Doesn't bother me. Is this paranoia or something? I mean, who better to know how to block advertising beacons than a former advertiser?

Re: Whom am I speaking with?

#50
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't solve anything - "to" is still a preposition and the "Who" in your sentence should still be "Whom".

1) Again, the preposition isn't a problem. 2) Then use "whom" if you like. I really can't be bothered to care, as the purpose of language is communication, not structural pedantry. Remember your Elements of Style - "Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous" - and note how even presumably well-educated people here find "whom" awkward and stilted in that usage.

I'm not taking a position either way - just stating that your suggestion doesn't actually change anything in question.
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