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I remember back when I was 16, I did a web page about my home town, claremont nh. I did this site: http://digitalsushi.com/midashi/claremont/ http://digitalsu
by digitalsushi 13y ago
I remember back when I was 16, I did a web page about my home town, claremont nh. I did this site: http://digitalsushi.com/midashi/claremont/ http://digitalsushi.com/midashi/claremont/ I was working for an ISP in town, and someone with the town called up the ISP to ask whom owned the site. Since I worked there, I was simply transferred the phone call. You can imagine how contextually confusing that would be, to be handed a call that technically had nothing to do with working there, and also, being a dumb 16 year old on tech support.
Well, the guy was asking all sorts of questions. I felt very intimidated. I remember clearly a phrase he left me with: "Well, this is just Big Brother checking in and making sure you're acting in good faith." He decided that I was, that I was not on a mission to sully the good city of claremont, and that was the end of it. But it really stuck with me, probably just out of my young age and the authority of a city official grilling me. 17 years later, the troll I have turned into would have loved the chance to bring out the worst in me, so it's probably good this happened when it did.
This article really brought me back to that time. Also, it's terrifying I have web content I published over 50% of my entire life ago. I know some of you have worse percentages, but that middle mark... yikes.
- austenallred 13y agoFor back in the day that's actually a fairly well-designed site.
- axb 13y agoAnd a great favicon to boot.
- johnminton 13y ago"ask who owned" not "ask whom owned". "whom" isn't just a word to put in to sound educated - it's used only when the "who" is an object. Here it is not.
- digitalsushi 13y agoYou don't have to be a dick about it. I thought 'whom' was right because the subject of the sentence was 'someone'.
- meepmorp 13y agoNext time, just say that the object case on the pronoun was licensed by an elided preposition. Continuing to call out the dickish behavior of the other poster works, too.
- johnminton 13y agoGramma who under you prepose right would be?
- Falling3 13y agoIt might have been a little dickish, but johnminton was right. People definitely have a tendency to overuse whom in a way they wouldn't with other pronouns.
- samstave 13y agoWhomever you are, you sound condescending rather than helpful.
- rosser 13y agoYears ago, someone taught me a very handy trick for determining whether to use the subject or object form: rephrase the sentence somehow so instead of who/whom, you're using he/him (or she/her, if you're so inclined). If "she" sounds right, use "who"; if "him" sounds right, it's "whom".
- StavrosK 13y agoYour advice isn't very clear, as you're switching genders. Stick with one, lest someone think "whom" is for men and "who" for women: If "he" sounds right, use "who"; if "him" sounds right, it's "whom".
- Pitarou 13y agoI learnt an even better trick: don't use it. Or rather, only use it if you intend to go the whole hog and comply with all the pedantic, pseudo-latinate prescriptions of traditional formal English grammar. "It is I." "Bad grammar is something up with which I shall not put." "This is an historic occasion." And so on....
- sk5t 13y agoThat's an okay strategy if you're going for "maximin": the best possible worst result. More refined speakers of English will notice and take umbrage at your mistakes, but a wrong "who" is so much less irritating than a wrong "whom."
- phillc73 13y ago> "This is an historic occasion." What's wrong with this? I cannot think of another way in which to say this?
- Pitarou 13y ago"an" or "a"? It's a long story. If you've never had to deal with this quaint piece of British pedantry, count yourself lucky. But you can still sometimes here BBC journalists who say "This is an historic occasion." with both the "n" and the "h" pronounced clearly.
- lucisferre 13y agoPerhaps they asked "to whom the site belonged?".
- reeses 13y agoAsk not to whom the site belongs, it belongs to thee.
- bane 13y ago"Whom" is archaic and generally not used in English anymore anyways. Overzealous and misguided efforts to save the word have scarred generations of youngsters.
- qu4z-2 13y agoWhom is fine, but so is using "who" in its place. If in doubt, use who. On that note, it reminds me of a company I did some work for recently. They never used "me", only "myself": "Yes, he gave it to myself on Tuesday." I doubt anyone would argue that "myself" is archaic, but people using it incorrectly is definitely jarring.
- bane 13y ago> Whom is fine, but so is using "who" in its place. If in doubt, use who. Probably better advice. There's a bit of research literature on the death of "whom". I can't remember when exactly, but I want to say around the beginning of the 20th century it pretty much died out from the language. It's a nice progression, English doesn't use thee, thine, thy or thou anymore either. re:myself. That's just plain weird.
- sethrin 13y agoPeople do however use "y'all" and "you guys", and others. Just because we don't have the words doesn't mean that they're unnecessary.
- phillc73 13y agoWe must speak with different people, because I hear it commonly used in the correct manner.
- bane 13y agoI can guarantee with near 100% certainty that unless you deal with people who speak in a formal style as their normal vernacular, you do not hear it either commonly nor consistently used in a correct manner. - the OED remarks "whom is 'no longer current in natural colloquial speech'" and notes multiple cases in Shakespeare, Defoe, Chaucer and the King James Bible where "whom" is used "incorrectly" by modern standards - Howard Lasnik and Nicholas Sobin describe whom as "It is commonly assumed that the English interrogative/relative pronoun whom is parallel to him and them in manifesting objective pronominal Case...Whom in modern English derives from a set of extra-grammatical rules...[used to generate] products that have a 'prestige' status. Whom differs markedly from intuitions about the use of personal pronouns. http://ling.umd.edu/~lasnik/ http://ling.umd.edu/~lasnik/ and the presentation http://academics.utep.edu/Portals/878/papers/whom_paper_vancouver.pdf http://academics.utep.edu/Portals/878/papers/whom_paper_vanc... - Edward Sapir dedicated significant studies to the obsoletion of whom. In "Language: Intro to Study Speech" he remarks: "It is safe to prophesy that within a couple of hundred years from to-day not even the most learned jurist will be saying "Whom did you see!" By that time the 'whom' will be as delightfully archaic as the Elizabethan 'his' for 'its.' No logical or historical argument will avail to save this hapless 'whom'" - Thurber provided this example: "A common rule for determining whether 'who' or 'whom' is right is to substitute 'she' for 'who', and 'her' for 'whom', and see which sounds better. Take the sentence, 'He met a woman who they said was an actress'. Now if 'who' is correct then 'she' can be used in its place...'He met a woman she they said was an actress'. - Chomsky wrote that similar non-grammatical structures that only exist in grammar books are: "...a violation of natural law. In fact, a good deal of what's taught is taught because it's wrong. You don't have to teach people their native language because it grows in their minds, but if you want people to say, "He and I were here" and not "Him and me were here," then you have to teach them because it's probably wrong. - Mair notes that: "whom is moribund as an element of the core grammar of English, but is very much alive as a style marker whose correct use is acquired in the educational system [, where it is taught]. [The use of whom] is highly restricted, but rather than disappear entirely, the form is likely to remain in use for some time to come because of its over prestige in writing."
- to3m 13y agoFor all intensive purposes, your right, but is they're really any need to go over things with a fine toothcomb? As me and everybody else seems to feel, the point hear is mute, and I'm sure yourself agrees. Its clear enough what was meaned.
- Domenic_S 13y agoWhat are you doing?! I think you just gave me cancer!
- to3m 13y agoCancer is unlikely, though some people can come out in a mild rash. Exposure therapy is the usual treatment.
- marcosscriven 13y agoWhat about non-intensive purposes? :-)
- antoko 13y agovery impressive and equally painful, how long did that take you?
- andrewmcdonough 13y agoExcellent comment.
- dylangs1030 13y agoYou started the funniest thread on Hacker News I've seen in a long, long time.