Justine Larbalestier

Comments

1. veejane Says:

   I’ll give you the split infinitive (although, how much cooler does “boldly to go where no one has gone before” sound??), but you will pry “whom” from my cold, dead fingers.

   I take to heart the fact that, to a television audience, “whom,” like the correct subjunctive, is invisible. You get random actors in Hollywood with an education (or from the northeast, where that’s common dialect), and they say “If I were actually kissing whom you think I am kissing…” and nobody notices that it’s an atypical utterance.

   Stealth grammar!

   February 22nd, 2006 at 3:35 am

2. niki Says:

   now all they need to do it fix the silly spelling rules so it’s phenetical like in Italian..I love italian -

   February 22nd, 2006 at 6:36 am

3. 3. Justine Says:

   Veejane: On a personal level, ’cause I like you and your lj’s a mighty fine read, I hope you have a long and prosperous life. But as one who cares about the English language and thinks “whom” is a ridiculous affectation, I can’t wait for you and the other pedant stickler people to die and take your dying ideas with you.

   And, no, Veejane that does not sound cooler. It sounds ludicrous. “To boldly go where no one has gone before” pees all over your spazmatron version!

   Niki: I believe the texting revolution is affecting that change as we speak. Language is all about change, change, change.

   February 22nd, 2006 at 7:39 am

4. Diana Peterfreund Says:

   I’m one of those annoying pedants. Not about split infinitives. If it weren’t meant to be split, then it wouldn’t be two words, right? But I like whom, and I hate people who think impact is a verb when they aren’t talking about teeth, and, even worse, who use impactful. ::shudder:: I am not ashamed to admit to liking the architecture of language as much as the bricks.

   February 22nd, 2006 at 8:18 am

5. 5. Justine Says:

   And there’s nothing shameful about it. Not even about liking “whom”. I like many things that the vast majority of people think are shockingly uncool and/or affected (like pronouncing lieutenant as if there’s an f in there). Everybody has their language bugbears. Obviously my hatred of “whom” is one of mine. I just happen to be on the winning side this time.

   The split infinitive thing is the most ridiculous of all. Twas foisted on us by 18th century grammarians who thought a grammar meant making the language conform to the rules of Latin. Split infinitive indeed!

   Shifts in the language are inevitable. You can rail as much as you like against whatever word thing being lost, but it will still be lost. And when all you whom-lovers go to your graves you’ll be taking whom with you.

   February 22nd, 2006 at 8:29 am

6. veejane Says:

   I’ll admit that, rather than being a true pedant stickler, I am rather an advocate for peculiar word choices that do interesting things. I like “boldly to go” because it reminds me of Tennyson (who happens not to split the infinitive, poor dumb bastard).

   Language choices made in the fulness of forethought, or even in the consciousness that they are dialect, are all fine by me –they’re play, and linguistic play is as fun as the internet practice of misspelling “the” to denote enthusiasm. (I do that one a lot.) I especially love people who stubbornly cling to the language rules they have defined for themselves, whether or not those rules make any sense at all.

   But “whom” is teh awesome!!1!1! Pronoun declension is the wave of the future! veejane&whom4evah!!

   February 22nd, 2006 at 9:07 am

7. 7. Justine Says:

   If only he had split a few infinitives! People would know who he was now . . . His non infinitive splitting has confined him to obscurity. Poor, Tennydaughterperson.

   February 22nd, 2006 at 9:22 am

8. shelly rae Says:

   I don’t know Justine. I think that ending a sentence with a preposition is something we should not put up with! Or something like that…
   Anon

   February 22nd, 2006 at 10:14 am

9. claire Says:

   i’m gonna have to come down on the side of whatever sounds right, and whatever sounds right is what the individual learned. i don’t use (or like) initial “whoms”, but i insist on them in the middle of the sentence, mainly because it just doesn’t *sound* right without it. “you gave that to who?” doesn’t sound right to me. “to who” sounds like an owl. “to whom” sounds like language. also, i don’t think infinitives should be split unless you want to punch the intervening modifier. me pedant.
   (ps: thanks for the linky-loo!)

   February 22nd, 2006 at 8:42 pm

10. 10. Justine Says:

    You know you’re going to die, too, Claire. That’s all I’m gonna say.

    February 22nd, 2006 at 9:56 pm

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