Who or Whom

[plughmann]

[quote="ostarella"]Grammar is a set of rules devised so people can actually understand what the other people are saying.[/quote]


That is the French approach. In English it tends to be a delayed documentation of what people actually understand by what they actually say.

If English grammar were authority based, instead of documenting reality, then we wold oll stil be speeking olde englishe. Eventually the dictionaries give in and put new words as well as changed usage into their list of definitions and spellings.

[ostarella]

Actually, it wasn't common usage that changed the spelling. Just the opposite. Benjamin Franklin and ultimately Noah Webster convinced people in the States to change the way they spelled, mainly due to nationalism.

https://www.livescience.com/33844-british-american-word-spelling.html

https://www.mhpbooks.com/benjamin-franklins-phonetic-alphabet-and-the-development-of-american-english/

[Dreaming Imrryr]

T.A.Rodgers wrote:
> This is one of those areas where it's good to know the rules, but one I
> choose not to follow. I'm sure Paul will cringe, but I never use whom. I
> rarely read a novel written today that uses whom. It's just one of those
> words that seems archaic. When I do see it in a novel it makes me stop
> reading. I then have to re-read the sentence. This is something I do not
> want a reader to do while reading my novel. I want them getting through
> each page as fast as possible. Stopping to re-read something takes me out
> of the story.

I like this.