How to Speak and Write Correctly by Joseph Devlin
page 105 of 188 (55%)
page 105 of 188 (55%)
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The use of the relative pronoun trips the greatest number of authors.
Even in the Bible we find the relative wrongly translated: Whom do men say that I am?--_St. Matthew_. Whom think ye that I am?--_Acts of the Apostles_. _Who_ should be written in both cases because the word is not in the objective governed by say or think, but in the nominative dependent on the verb _am_. "_Who_ should I meet at the coffee house t'other night, but my old friend?"--_Steele_. "It is another pattern of this answerer's fair dealing, to give us hints that the author is dead, and yet lay the suspicion upon somebody, I know not _who_, in the country."--Swift's _Tale of a Tub_. "My son is going to be married to I don't know _who_."--Goldsmith's _Good-natured Man_. The nominative _who_ in the above examples should be the objective _whom_. The plural nominative _ye_ of the pronoun _thou_ is very often used for the objective _you_, as in the following: "His wrath which will one day destroy _ye both_."--_Milton_. |
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