<<I don't know. Medical journals always use [accusative] WHOM. And they avoid contractions (it's, they'll)...>>
That's perfectly fine. I'm certainly not advocating the death of 'whom'. I still use it in some contexts myself (altho more frequently in formal papers). I'm just saying that realistic style guides (such as for college papers or whatever) these days don't *require* it. "Whom" started its way out when "thou" did and no style guide requires "thou" for the 2nd person singular anymore (in fact, using "thou" would be odd under most contexts). That's why I was saying earlier it was kind of surprising "whom" had lasted even this long.
<<Yeah, I've read that according to prescriptivists (historically), "shall" was used for simple statements of future action for the 1st person, and "will" was used for simple statements of future action for the 2nd and 3rd persons. And on the flipside, "will" was supposed to be used for wishes or exhortations for the 1st person, and "shall" was supposed to be used for wishes or exhortations for the 2nd and 3rd persons. This struck me as really weird the first time I read about it - it's pretty much the only time that I've heard of any language using an arrangement with:
Meaning A:
"verb x" for some persons
"verb y" for other persons
Meaning B:
"verb y" for some persons
"verb x" for other persons
Like you, I think it's highly unlikely that such a weird system would have arisen naturally.>>
Yeah it's pretty odd. It's almost conlangy in nature. I guess I could see how some natlang out there could have come up with such a thing but we know enough about English to be aware that that didn't happen.
That's perfectly fine. I'm certainly not advocating the death of 'whom'. I still use it in some contexts myself (altho more frequently in formal papers). I'm just saying that realistic style guides (such as for college papers or whatever) these days don't *require* it. "Whom" started its way out when "thou" did and no style guide requires "thou" for the 2nd person singular anymore (in fact, using "thou" would be odd under most contexts). That's why I was saying earlier it was kind of surprising "whom" had lasted even this long.
<<Yeah, I've read that according to prescriptivists (historically), "shall" was used for simple statements of future action for the 1st person, and "will" was used for simple statements of future action for the 2nd and 3rd persons. And on the flipside, "will" was supposed to be used for wishes or exhortations for the 1st person, and "shall" was supposed to be used for wishes or exhortations for the 2nd and 3rd persons. This struck me as really weird the first time I read about it - it's pretty much the only time that I've heard of any language using an arrangement with:
Meaning A:
"verb x" for some persons
"verb y" for other persons
Meaning B:
"verb y" for some persons
"verb x" for other persons
Like you, I think it's highly unlikely that such a weird system would have arisen naturally.>>
Yeah it's pretty odd. It's almost conlangy in nature. I guess I could see how some natlang out there could have come up with such a thing but we know enough about English to be aware that that didn't happen.