Another Tricky Who-Whom Usage

First, here’s the comic. First panel:

It’s supposed to be “to whom,” (whomever) right? No! Not this time!

Remember the rule: go from the inside out.

“Whomever” is the subject of the clause whose verb is “wants.” It’s “Whoever wants one.”

The “to” is just a preposition with the noun clause “whoever wants one” as its object.

Tricky!

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Well, maybe not quite synonyms, but almost.

Remember:

• Healthy is the state of not being sick
• Healthily describes the practice of acting to produce good health. So is healthful, by the way.

So the doctor got it wrong.

Here’s the sentence, from a guy I read regularly:

This isn’t about Suzi, but her predecessor, Vaska, a Rhodesian ridgeback who was very good on leash but would nearly tear my arm from its socket if he spotted the letter carrier, who he knew carried doggy cookies.

Toward the end: “who he [the dog] knew carried doggie cookies.”

Shouldn’t that be “whom” before “he knew”? He knew him, right?

Nope!

The rule is you go from the inside out. The dog knew he carried doggie cookies. “Who” is the subject of the subordiante clause, “who carried doggie cookies,” and he is the subject of the main clause, “he knew.”

Tricky tricky. Don’t let the word order fool you!

Here’s a slightly related comic from that essay because I like to have pictures in my posts.

The words are weather and climate. The first item is basic and correct; The rest of the list is illustrative and interesting. I got it from a comment on A Word A day.

• Weather is short-term; climate is long-term.
• Weather is individual measurements; climate is average measurements.
• Weather is what you get; climate is what you expect.
• Weather is umbrellas; climate is ice ages.
• Weather is the city council; climate is the United Nations.
• Weather is 3 minutes on TV; climate is doctoral dissertations.
• Weather comes and goes; climate just keeps on coming.
• Weather change kills off individual plants and animals; climate change kills off entire species.
• Weather is Angry Birds; climate is The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Interesting discussion of these two phrases, but I disagree with the second definition, next to last panel. Too self-centered.

I think the first definition is okay, but a bit incomplete. It doesn’t mention the possibility of interchange of ideas between the participants.

How would you define “talking to”?