Death to Whom!

Well, maybe that's a little strong. But the fact is, I like language change. I like to see how we find new ways of saying things to get around old problems. I like it when we find easier ways to achieve communication objectives. Ways that require less thought. And that means dropping stuff you don't need.

Once upon a time, English had cases (subject, object, etc.). Now we're down to a genitive (possessive) case and an everything else case. French even got rid of the genitive, making use of "de" (of) the same way it uses "à" for dative -indirect object - just as we use "to".

Now, says the Linguistic Mystic, whom is on the chopping block. And it's about time. If people use it incorrectly half the time, then the distinction isn't actually communicating anything except the grammatical abilities of the speaker (provided the interlocutor is even paying attention).

Up next: Will all the Romance languages follow French in dumping the imperfect subjunctive? Will Italian follow French and Spanish and find a way to use "andare" for future so that the conjugationally deficient can duck that problem. (Yes, I know it's just "avere," but I always goof up the stress.)

I actually have a rather long wish list of grammatical features I'm ready to see go in different languages I've worked on, and smile a little smile every time I read about one fading. But so far, either my cultural context is limited or they're falling away the fastest in English.

There are some people who want to keep languages the way they know them, feeling that how they were is how they should be. But languages are living things. To stop growing is to die, because it means that people no longer need them to say new things and share new ideas in new and better (to them) ways. So I am glad to see "whom" going away, both because it is unnecessary and because its disappearance means my native tongue is continuing to evolve to communicate what I and my fellow Anglophones have to communicate, rather than making distinctions we no longer need or want.

N0te that there is an earlier piece on another development I love: the semi-spontaneous emergence of the gender-neutral "their".