Grammar and Usage Mavens

 

I did a FB post the other day about an “error” in grammar I’d stumbled across in an essay by Ann Patchett, a writer whose complete works I’ve just finished reading.

This is the post and the error: 

All right, you “whoever-whomever” mavens, how about this one, published in a collection of essays by Ann Patchett:

“I promised whomever was listening that from those very ashes the small independent bookstore would rise again” (This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, 234).

Some people who commented said that the distinction was one that, in recent years, has been going away, disappearing into the swamp of Distinctions Lost.

I agree.

It seems as if the only time most people use whomever is when they’re trying to sound ... sophisticated. And often they’re just flat wrong (as Patchett was—so unlike her). When you’re using whoever/whomever, you have to determine how it’s being used in its own clause—and ignore the rest of the sentence.

In this case, the W word appears in the clause “W was listening.” So ... it’s the subject of its own clause, and that clause in its entirety, not the W word, is the direct object of the sentence.

This is true even when it looks weird to you: “Give the candy to whoever asks for it.” This is correct for the same reason the earlier one was: It’s the subject of its own clause—and the entire clause is the object of the preposition to.

Here’s a correct whomever: Give the candy to whomever you like. It’s not the to that makes it correct (as we’ve seen), but because the W word is the direct object of its own clause. I always found it useful to substitute he and him for who and whomever. In the example above, the clause becomes Him you like.

You can see why the rule is evanescing: Too much to think about in these days of texting!

Lots of other rules I learned in school have already bid buh-bye and are totally gone—or barely visible far in the distance.

The difference between may and can. The apostrophe. (On social media I see it hanging about, looking for an exit.) The use of the colon, the semicolon. The difference between healthy and healthful. And countless more pairs of words.

You just have to remember: We made up all these rules, and when the rules become irrelevant or arcane (like old English teachers), it’s time to discard them. Or to accept that such discards are going to happen eventually.