When Not to Correct Someone’s Grammar

My policy is to be wise and not correct someone unless they ask. (I get asked a lot on quora.com, by the way.) This comic is a good example of when to use this policy of non-correction. Even though he’s right about the grammar.

Frankly, I recommend not cheating in the first place, either.

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First speech bubble. It’s correct!

That “whom” sounds wrong because we’re used to hearing the subject of the sentence first. That ‘whom’ is really the object of “of.” You can also say that the “whom” is introducing the noun clause that’s the direct object of “know”!

To fix the word order a bit, you’d have:

Do you know of whom she reminds me?

Of course now you have a rather awkward question. I fear that “who” will become the only form to appear at the beginning of a sentence regardless of the word’s function in the sentence.

PS—If it were me, I’d write. “Hey! She reminds me of someone I knew.”

PPS—Since I ran into it today, here’s a strip that gets it wrong twice. Second panel:

PPPS—And here’s one where he gets it right. First panel.

This post first appeared on The Writing Rag.

First the comic…

Two lessons here. Maybe three.

• First: first panel. She’s actually asking “Who is it?” That’s correct. “Who” is the subject of the implied sentence.
• Next: third panel. He misstates her question, but “whom” is okay in his sentence. “Whom” is the object of the preposition.
• Finally: Her displeasure is appropriate, I suppose, but she should have used “who” because it’s the subject of the sentence.

I guess the moral is to be careful about whom you play video games with.

First, look at the comic. It’s the second speech bubble.

First, a rule:

Who is some kind of a subject
Whom is some kind of an object.

Is the word a subject or an object? How else might you say that sentence?

• You could say, “Who are ‘they’?” That would make the word a subject, so “who,” not “whom.”
• You could say, “They are who(m)?” Since the verb is a form of “to be,” the word is a predicate nominative, so we still get “who” not “whom.”
• Maybe look for an antecedent, which would be in the speech bubble in the upper right. That has “they’re doing,” short for “they are doing.” Still a subject, so we’re still stuck with “who,” not “whom.”

The gal in the glasses is incorrect, using a pretentiousism. Maybe she takes after her mom, who also makes lots of mistakes.

Changing the subject is a common defense mechanism, I think.

The kid is right about the grammar, though. “Whom” is the object of a preposition.