Ah, grammar. It is the headache of schoolchildren everywhere for its endless exceptions and confusing jargon. Seriously, creating such specific phrases such as "nonrestrictive modifiers" and "predicate nominative" is pretty much asking students to be disinterred in grammar. Plus, people see it as limiting the creative power of writing (I'm looking at you, James Joyce). But we have grammar to create effective communication. But I do admit, some of the grammar rules seem archaic. For example, the following sentence is traditionally incorrect: He began to slowly walk to the store. The problem is technically you can't split the infinitive "to walk" with "slowly," but I'm certainly not going to call you out on it. I want to point out the rules of grammar that I think are still relevant today and important to practice, especially in formal communication.
Our first song is the Ghostbuster's Theme Song! The issue in the song comes from the famous line "who you gonna call?" This song was originally published in 1984 (Big Brother is watching...points if you get the literary reference)! According to this incredibly useful Google graph on word concentration, "whom" had been on a steady decline pretty much since its conception. But the word reached its all time low in 1996. Hmm....is it suspicious that this ultra popular song using "who" instead of "whom" was tied to the lowest percentage of the word in about a decade of its release? Perhaps, but also maybe you're calling me out on my very questionable statistic interpretation. And that would be fair. But there is good news! Since the word's descent in 1996, it has been on a slow crawl upward! So better brush up on its usage because it's going to be mainstream to be grammatically correct with "whom" before you know it.
Again, we have the ubiquitous issue here of "who" vs. "whom." It is the battle of the century. At least, it's the battle of the century in the grammar world. The reason I deem "whom" to still be important today and not historical is that it is often used in formal letters. When the recipient of the letter is unknown, it is common to write "to whom it may concern." And almost because of this reason alone, I think a review is good.
So the song say "who you gonna call," but it honestly doesn't make any sense from a grammatical perspective. I'll use the grammar jargon to explain it first and then give an easier way to remember that's not as pretentious.
The word "who" falls under the categorization of subject/nominative pronoun, whereas the word "whom" falls under objective pronoun. An objective pronoun should be used when it is the direct object, indirect object, or object of preposition. The phrase "____ you gonna call" has a subject (you) and the verbs ([are] gonna call). "To call" functions as a transitive verb in this circumstance, meaning that it must have an indirect object. This means that we must call for the objective pronoun "whom" instead of "who" since we need an indirect object! Who will be used when there is a verb that needs a subject. So on a technical level, see if there is a verb that needs a subject or if there is a missing object.
I realize that the technical understanding of the grammar is almost pointless to memorize, so I'll give a fun trick that will show you which pronoun to use. The trick is to answer your own question! I know you want to say "I'm gonna call the Ghostbusters!" And you can! But not for the trick. See if your question can be answered with "him." If it's not a question, rearrange the sentence into a question. Him is an objective pronoun, so if it can be answered with him we know to use the objective pronoun "whom" but we can skip all the confusing grammar. This question can be answered with "him," (I'm gonna call him), so we know we need to use whom! An extra trick my 10th grade English teacher taught me is that both "him" and "whom" end with "m," so now you won't ever remember to do the trick but forget where to go once you answer the question. If it can't be answered with him, use who!
Practice is Fun! Highlight the black box to see the answer:
"All the way from California came my friend, ________ I surprised at the airport with chocolate.
"whom; "________ did I surprise at the airport?" "I surprised him."
"My doctor, ________ is late to every appointment, wrote me an illegible prescription."
who; "________is late to every appointment?" "He is."
"________ did you kill?"
whom; already in question form; "You killed him"
I sincerely hope every time you see or hear "who you gonna call" you immediately think of its erroneous grammar. It ruins the song for you. But if you wanted to be extra pompous, try telling people it should most accurately be "To whom are you going to call?" and see what reactions it gets you! I'm sure it'll be a big hit.
Our first song is the Ghostbuster's Theme Song! The issue in the song comes from the famous line "who you gonna call?" This song was originally published in 1984 (Big Brother is watching...points if you get the literary reference)! According to this incredibly useful Google graph on word concentration, "whom" had been on a steady decline pretty much since its conception. But the word reached its all time low in 1996. Hmm....is it suspicious that this ultra popular song using "who" instead of "whom" was tied to the lowest percentage of the word in about a decade of its release? Perhaps, but also maybe you're calling me out on my very questionable statistic interpretation. And that would be fair. But there is good news! Since the word's descent in 1996, it has been on a slow crawl upward! So better brush up on its usage because it's going to be mainstream to be grammatically correct with "whom" before you know it.
Again, we have the ubiquitous issue here of "who" vs. "whom." It is the battle of the century. At least, it's the battle of the century in the grammar world. The reason I deem "whom" to still be important today and not historical is that it is often used in formal letters. When the recipient of the letter is unknown, it is common to write "to whom it may concern." And almost because of this reason alone, I think a review is good.
So the song say "who you gonna call," but it honestly doesn't make any sense from a grammatical perspective. I'll use the grammar jargon to explain it first and then give an easier way to remember that's not as pretentious.
The word "who" falls under the categorization of subject/nominative pronoun, whereas the word "whom" falls under objective pronoun. An objective pronoun should be used when it is the direct object, indirect object, or object of preposition. The phrase "____ you gonna call" has a subject (you) and the verbs ([are] gonna call). "To call" functions as a transitive verb in this circumstance, meaning that it must have an indirect object. This means that we must call for the objective pronoun "whom" instead of "who" since we need an indirect object! Who will be used when there is a verb that needs a subject. So on a technical level, see if there is a verb that needs a subject or if there is a missing object.
I realize that the technical understanding of the grammar is almost pointless to memorize, so I'll give a fun trick that will show you which pronoun to use. The trick is to answer your own question! I know you want to say "I'm gonna call the Ghostbusters!" And you can! But not for the trick. See if your question can be answered with "him." If it's not a question, rearrange the sentence into a question. Him is an objective pronoun, so if it can be answered with him we know to use the objective pronoun "whom" but we can skip all the confusing grammar. This question can be answered with "him," (I'm gonna call him), so we know we need to use whom! An extra trick my 10th grade English teacher taught me is that both "him" and "whom" end with "m," so now you won't ever remember to do the trick but forget where to go once you answer the question. If it can't be answered with him, use who!
Practice is Fun! Highlight the black box to see the answer:
"All the way from California came my friend, ________ I surprised at the airport with chocolate.
"whom; "________ did I surprise at the airport?" "I surprised him."
"My doctor, ________ is late to every appointment, wrote me an illegible prescription."
who; "________is late to every appointment?" "He is."
"________ did you kill?"
whom; already in question form; "You killed him"
I sincerely hope every time you see or hear "who you gonna call" you immediately think of its erroneous grammar. It ruins the song for you. But if you wanted to be extra pompous, try telling people it should most accurately be "To whom are you going to call?" and see what reactions it gets you! I'm sure it'll be a big hit.
As the child of an editor I must say that I am quite happy to see someone who is as (if not more) passionate about grammar than I am. It had never occurred to me to think that "who you gonna call" was a grammatical error (ignoring, of course, the ungrammatical abbreviation gonna for going to). I thoroughly look forward to seeing more songs grammatically dissected.
ReplyDeleteI love the practice opportunity! Fabulous use of the black highlighting feature. Fun premise!
ReplyDelete