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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Any more I’d say would be literally unnecessary.

This lesson is about how to introduce a speaker, but first the comic:

The speaker intro in the comic is basically okay, except it needs to include information that is germane to the event and nothing else, so he should leave out the info about the speaker’s hobbies and family.

The big thing the intro got correct is that the last thing in the intro is the speaker’s name! Whenever you introduce a speaker, save the speaker’s name for last, then after you say the name, turn your head toward the speaker.

A caesura is when you have insert a pause in a poem to make the meter work. Every panel except the last two has a caesura between the first and second lines. You can get the feel by inserting “and” or another one-syllable word where the caesura goes.

Okay, reader challenge: Write a four-line verse (called a quatrain, by the way) with a caesura in it. Put it in the comments.

Notwithstanding, the grammar geek is correct—about the grammar. Linguistic change happens, so I can’t entirely agree about the decline of western civilization.

Not only is he correct, but I saw this the same day:

Maybe the geeks are winning!