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Whom am I speaking with?
- steverb 16y agoI can't decide if the "Whom" in the title is a troll or not. At least the article gets it right.
- tspiteri 16y agoHow does the article get it right? If the answer can be "him", the question should be "whom", and if the answer can be "he", the question should be "who". Having said that, "Whom am I speaking with?" does sound pretty weird, "With whom am I speaking?" sounds much better.
- steverb 16y agoWho is a subjective pronoun. Whom is an objective pronoun. First hit off the Google: http://web.ku.edu/~edit/whom.html http://web.ku.edu/~edit/whom.html Doesn't matter really, just made my brain twitch when I read it.
- ajross 16y agoMe too, but that's because the implied preposition makes the word order look funny. The subject of the title sentence is "I".
- blahedo 16y agoThat 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-ending "with", mixing register in a very confusing way. It's like wearing a bow tie and tails with loud bermuda shorts: both are perfectly acceptable public attire and you might see either on a busy urban street of an evening, but it's jarring to see them together.
- jmulho 16y agoRight. "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 peanuts.
- dctoedt 16y ago> "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.
- jmulho 16y agoOk, 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 http://inogolo.com/pronunciation/Pinot%20Noir French: http://www.forvo.com/word/pinot_noir/#fr http://www.forvo.com/word/pinot_noir/#fr
- Vivtek 16y agoThe reason it "sounds weird" is that it's attempting to straddle two dialects. The use of "whom" is a signal for classical (Latinate) grammar, which would demand the Latinate prepositional word order, while the use of separable-prefix Germanic word order with "with" at the end is a signal to use "who" because dangling prepositions are associated with the less-Latinate trend towards discarding accusative "whom". These modes normally don't get mixed, hence the weird sound of the title of this post.
- hung 16y agoI can't decide if this comment is a troll or not. "Whom" is grammatically correct.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- hippo33 16y agoThat's pretty neat -- sounds really useful for trying to better address a customer.
- imperialWicket 16y agoThe 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.
- cryptoz 16y agoFrom 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?”
- NickPollard 16y agoQuoting (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 http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/churchill.html
- RiderOfGiraffes 16y agoOf course, it should be "... shall not put."
- EliRivers 16y agoBut you might say "Which car am I driving in?"
- jeromec 16y agoI 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?
- pluies 16y agoOkay, grammatical quibbles aside, this blog post is scary. Harvesting that much information about your customers is creepy and dangerous. I don't care that it helps your business or that it's technically feasible, it's just wrong.
- bcx 16y agoI'd like to understand more of your concerns. Olark just help website owners take the information they already have about you (and that you gave to them), and use it to provide better service. So if your logged into a website and ask a question the operator doesn't have to ask you for your username again (the website already knows it -- why shouldn't the person helping you) Most of this parallels what goes on in the real world. If you often shop at the same store the clerks will start to recognize you and give you more personal service -- Olark just lets small business owners do the same online.
- huhtenberg 16y agoDefinitely, that's why Olark has been firmly sitting on my AdBlock blacklist from the first time I ran into them.
- bcx 16y agoDo you also block Google Analytics?
- huhtenberg 16y agoYes.
- shaggyfrog 16y agoYou can block them and many, many more with Ghostery. I've installed it on all of my computers/browsers. http://www.ghostery.com/ http://www.ghostery.com/
- huhtenberg 16y ago