# Whom killed grammar? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 4, 2012, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whom-killed-grammar/633677 "2012-09-04T20:17:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whom-killed-grammar/633677/41 "2012-09-06T11:06:10Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Contrast “North Atlantic Treaty Organization” with “Organization de la Traité de l’Atlantique du Nord”. Or, as the stand-up Al Murray once said: > [@](#): > > Each year we have a Boat Show. It’s a show that shows boats. Boat Show. That’s a lean cut of language. But the French? For them, it has to be “Une exposition de notres bateaux maritimes”. They’re their own worst enemy, the French. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whom-killed-grammar/633677/42 "2012-09-06T14:13:07Z")
Other Germanic languages like German, Dutch and Swedish are similar in their word order, but they stick them together more. German for “boat show” is “Bootsmesse”. In fact “boat show” in all three of those languages is just one word. Sometimes there are amusing results when words like “Schiff” and “Fahrt” (see, it’s funny already) get combined to make the German word for shipping - “Schifffahrt”. In fact there was also “Flußschiffahrt” which is now “Flussschifffahrt” (ß = double S). Until recently, triple letters were avoided but now the rules have changed in an attempt to simplify. In English we seem to try to keep our language somewhat more elegant, but as a result it can be very complicated to learn. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whom-killed-grammar/633677/43 "2012-09-06T17:48:49Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Textbooks at all levels have been getting dumber with each passing decade, which is reprehensible. A college education is now the equivalent of what a high school education used to be. Those who go beyond either do so largely on their own initiative. That’s absurd. When I was in HS, for example, hardly anyone learned any calculus and those who did learned a few cookbook rules. Now it seems that almost everyone who follows an academic track in HS is taught calculus (how well is a different issue). My kids all had chemistry and physics courses that were well beyond what I took (and I went to one of the premier public high schools in the entire US. Much the same is true at the college level. Our undergraduates math majors are routinely taught at least the beginnings of Galois Theory (want to know why there is not and cannot be a formula to find roots for fifth and higher degree polynomials). A colleague of mine has a PhD from UC Berkeley and never learned any there. ---
**Author:** ![Esox\_Lucius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Esox\_Lucius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esox_Lucius)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whom-killed-grammar/633677/44 "2012-09-06T19:06:29Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > …prepositions should not be used to end a sentence with. (Okay, that’s a lousy example.) How about this one? _“That is precisely the kind of English up with which I will not put.” --a quote I’ve seen attributed to Churchill, but who knows?_ ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whom-killed-grammar/633677/45 "2012-09-06T19:27:35Z")
We all killed Grammar [http://www.amazon.com/ALL-KILLED-GRANDMA-Fredric-Brown/dp/B002LTIQ2C](http://www.amazon.com/ALL-KILLED-GRANDMA-Fredric-Brown/dp/B002LTIQ2C) > **[Pulp International - Vintage cover of We All Killed Grandma by Frederic Brown](https://www.pulpinternational.com/pulp/entry/Vintage-cover-of-We-All-Killed-Grandma-by-Frederic-Brown.html)** > > We were always against government intervention—until we needed it. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2012, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whom-killed-grammar/633677/46 "2012-09-07T02:48:31Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > Other Germanic languages like German, Dutch and Swedish are similar in their word order, but they stick them together more. German for “boat show” is “Bootsmesse”. In fact “boat show” in all three of those languages is just one word. Sometimes there are amusing results when words like “Schiff” and “Fahrt” (see, it’s funny already) get combined to make the German word for shipping - “Schifffahrt”. In fact there was also “Flußschiffahrt” which is now “Flussschifffahrt” (ß = double S). Until recently, triple letters were avoided but now the rules have changed in an attempt to simplify. Tell it to author and Far East expect Steven [Schlossstein](http://schlossstein.net/). Firssst time I sssaw him quoted in a newssspaper I had to take out my contactsss and ressst my eyesss. ---
**Author:** ![Carnacki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b5e925/32.png) [@Carnacki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carnacki)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2012, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whom-killed-grammar/633677/47 "2012-09-07T02:55:06Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > We all killed Grammar > [http://www.amazon.com/ALL-KILLED-GRANDMA-Fredric-Brown/dp/B002LTIQ2C](http://www.amazon.com/ALL-KILLED-GRANDMA-Fredric-Brown/dp/B002LTIQ2C) > > [DEATH PANEL - Pulp International](http://www.pulpinternational.com/pulp/entry/Vintage-cover-of-We-All-Killed-Grandma-by-Frederic-Brown.html) Or perhaps Grammar done got runned over by a reindeer? ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2012, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whom-killed-grammar/633677/48 "2012-09-07T05:38:58Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > Other Germanic languages like German, Dutch and Swedish are similar in their word order, but they stick them together more. German for “boat show” is “Bootsmesse”. In fact “boat show” in all three of those languages is just one word. Sometimes there are amusing results when words like “Schiff” and “Fahrt” (see, it’s funny already) get combined to make the German word for shipping - “Schifffahrt”. In fact there was also “Flußschiffahrt” which is now “Flussschifffahrt” (ß = double S). Until recently, triple letters were avoided but now the rules have changed in an attempt to simplify. In English we seem to try to keep our language somewhat more elegant, but as a result it can be very complicated to learn. German word order can be crazy different from English, thanks to the still fairly robust system of noun inflection, which in English was almost completely lost. That said, why is it that speakers of other European languages typically seem to speak much more “grammatically” in the context of their own language? They get verb conjugations right, they get case and gender inflections right, even if to us as English speakers all this seems to make no sense. In German, for instance, when you are laying the book on the table, you have to refer to the table in the accusative case, but in saying that the book is already there, it’s dative. Even when speaking in haste, even youngsters usually get these grammatical niceties right. To be sure, German does have a few variances that are somewhat analogous to the situation with “who” and “whom” in English. A certain class of prepositions require genitive predicates, but German speakers will often use the dative in informal speech. But there’s none of this “Me and him went to the park” stuff, not even by eight-year-old kids. In the Anglophone world, this is standard adult speech in many dialects. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2012, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whom-killed-grammar/633677/49 "2012-09-07T05:45:06Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > Other Germanic languages like German, Dutch and Swedish are similar in their word order, but they stick them together more. German for “boat show” is “Bootsmesse”. In fact “boat show” in all three of those languages is just one word. From a linguistic standpoint, I’m pretty sure that “boat show” is actually a single word as well. The fact that we write it that way is a matter of orthography. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2012, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whom-killed-grammar/633677/50 "2012-09-07T10:19:21Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > That said, why is it that speakers of other European languages typically seem to speak much more “grammatically” in the context of their own language? They get verb conjugations right, they get case and gender inflections right, even if to us as English speakers all this seems to make no sense. ,…there’s none of this “Me and him went to the park” stuff, not even by eight-year-old kids. In the Anglophone world, this is standard adult speech in many dialects. From the outside looking in, I find that there’s a large difference between Anglo countries there. And from previous threads, in other languages people get much more formal grammar training (I even recall Canadians mentioning that they had had more grammar training in French than in English). Some of the grammar analysis tools I learned in 5th grade still get whipped out occasionally, most often when someone is having certain kinds of problems with a second language (such as subject-verb mismatch because they’ve lost track of which group is the subject; as soon as they start trying to analyze the sentence, it becomes obvious). Also, in those cultures where grammar mishaps are considered unacceptable, they will be less likely to happen: when my mother or my grandmother speak in sentences so incomplete as to be incomprehensible, our standard response is “subject, verb and complements!”, but I’ve heard that exact line in the subway… for people whose cultures lean on the prescriptivist side, a grammatical error is a bug; for those who are more on the descriptivist side, a feature. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2012, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whom-killed-grammar/633677/51 "2012-09-07T14:05:17Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > That said, why is it that speakers of other European languages typically seem to speak much more “grammatically” in the context of their own language? They get verb conjugations right, they get case and gender inflections right, even if to us as English speakers all this seems to make no sense. But a lot of those carry necessary information. Tengo un gato en mis pantalones and Tienes un gato en mis pantalones mean very different things. Me and Jim went to the park carries just as much info as Jim and I so there’s no pressure on speakers to speak it “correctly”. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2012, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whom-killed-grammar/633677/52 "2012-09-07T14:11:15Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > From a linguistic standpoint, I’m pretty sure that “boat show” is actually a single word as well. The fact that we write it that way is a matter of orthography. You’re just showboating. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![oreally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7ab992/32.png) [@oreally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oreally)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2012, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whom-killed-grammar/633677/53 "2012-09-07T15:27:32Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Having read a lot of history, I’m not sure that the _average_ person’s knowledge of grammar is worse than it was, say, 100 years ago, when many people didn’t even finish high school. > > What _does_ amaze me is how many “educated” people write badly, and then go on the defensive when you point it out to them. > > To write well, and in a manner not subject to misinterpretation, requires that certain rules be followed, like it or not. And anyone with a reasonably good grasp of the language should be able to tell good writing from bad. > > Some things can be overlooked as matters of style, but when a college graduate doesn’t know the difference between “your” and “you’re,” that’s just pathetic. > > This can be attributed partly to the influence of television, I suppose, but I’ve never felt that watching the tube had any great effect on my English. Maybe it depends on what you watch. > > Textbooks at all levels have been getting dumber with each passing decade, which is reprehensible. A college education is now the equivalent of what a high school education used to be. Those who go beyond either do so largely on their own initiative. > > Electronic communications (chat rooms and the like) have done a lot to degrade language skills, partly because of the company that’s kept in them. You don’t have to write effectively to hobnob with people who are on your level. > > Do I talk the same way I write? A lot of the time, yes. Maybe not when I talk to my dog and cat, but almost always with my daughter, students, and colleagues. > > If you don’t already know, I’ve worked in three areas that require (or ought to require) above-average language skills: publishing, broadcasting, and education. Finally, an intelligent post that actually addresses the question. Thank you. I think the primary culprits are technology and the disturbing trend or fad of talking like a moron, which is apparently “hip” and all the rage. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2012, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whom-killed-grammar/633677/54 "2012-09-07T23:15:21Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > From the outside looking in, I find that there’s a large difference between Anglo countries there. > > And from previous threads, in other languages people get much more formal grammar training (I even recall Canadians mentioning that they had had more grammar training in French than in English). Some of the grammar analysis tools I learned in 5th grade still get whipped out occasionally, most often when someone is having certain kinds of problems with a second language (such as subject-verb mismatch because they’ve lost track of which group is the subject; as soon as they start trying to analyze the sentence, it becomes obvious). I’m not sure the difference can be explained by greater emphasis on grammar in schools. Though it’s been a long time, I’m fairly certain we had similar lessons and drills in the fifth grade, and even later, when I was in school. (I can’t speak to what they do now, though.) In any language, six-year-old kids usually don’t yet understand all the subtleties of complex sentence structures, such as might be used in academic papers, but my impression with Spanish and other continental languages is that the kids already have a ready command of those verb forms and/or nominal inflections that are in common daily use. (The ability to _explain_ how it works is a different matter). German-speaking kids, and I assume Spanish-speaking kids as well, raised in their respective standard languages might utter short “child” sentences, but the verbs and nouns in those sentences will be correct as to number, person and gender. In the case of German, they will additionally be correct as to case. This type of grammar isn’t generally taught so much as it is acquired naturally as the child learns to speak. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2012, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whom-killed-grammar/633677/55 "2012-09-08T00:11:11Z")
_So tell me, whom are you? (Whom are you? Whom, whom? Whom, whom?) 'Cause I really wanna know (Whom are you? Whom, whom? Whom, whom?) Tell me, whom the fuck are you? (Whom are you? Whom, whom? Whom, whom?) 'Cause I really wanna know…_ ---
**Author:** ![Ignatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3be4f8/32.png) [@Ignatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignatz)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2012, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whom-killed-grammar/633677/56 "2012-09-08T00:47:34Z")
Him and her did it. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2012, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whom-killed-grammar/633677/57 "2012-09-08T02:14:34Z")
> [@Kenm](#): > > A couple of weeks ago a fluent English- and French-speaking friend who, in addition to his regular job sometimes works as a translator, said he and bilingual friends usually text each other in English though their mother tongue is French because English is 20 per cent shorter. The number may be suspect, but his comment reinforces the assertion that English is more compact than French. > > I can’t say whether this is as true with any other western language when compared with English, but I suspect it is. That is the case with Spanish, and, I suspect, all Romance languages. Spanish is excruciatingly verbose. Even though I started speaking Spanish 7 years before I uttered my first word in English I think, count and function in English on account of it being a much leaner, flexible and simpler language. Plus Spanish is 20 years behind English when it comes to the internet, computers and the like. You should see the contortions we go through to name terms of the trade when it comes to technology and the internet. The vast majority of people resort to English to make themselves understood. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2012, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whom-killed-grammar/633677/58 "2012-09-08T02:27:37Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > _So tell me, whom are you? > (Whom are you? Whom, whom? Whom, whom?) > 'Cause I really wanna know > (Whom are you? Whom, whom? Whom, whom?) > Tell me, whom the fuck are you? > (Whom are you? Whom, whom? Whom, whom?) > 'Cause I really wanna know…_ (“Who are you” is actually correct in that usage, just in case anyone is wondering.) ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2012, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whom-killed-grammar/633677/59 "2012-09-08T04:13:08Z")
A U.S. TV game show started the rot in the '50s. Who Do You Trust, indeed. Hurrumph. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2012, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whom-killed-grammar/633677/60 "2012-09-08T06:17:22Z")
> [@Kenm](#): > > A U.S. TV game show started the rot in the '50s. Who Do You Trust, indeed. > > Hurrumph. _Who do you trust?_ is completely acceptable in educated discourse, even in the apparently outmoded standard that college educated people were once held to, at least for those who speak English as their native language. _To who_ or _at who_ is a different matter. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whom-killed-grammar/633677.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whom-killed-grammar/633677.md?page=4)