Posted on 04/30/2003 6:15:29 PM PDT by bannie
Him whom sent this thing into the 300 post range. That's a lot of whoms. Egads!
Whom shall we pin that on? Perhaps her whom had post 301? ;)
Often times, one can disect a thing past the point of effectiveness. I may have done this!
Sssslap me, and send me to bed without dinner!
Thattz ooakie: I kennt sppiel wurrth ah plugg nikkel.
(Was Charlotte's Web the book in which the goose/duck spelled everything with a "double":
"double t, double t..."
There are a whole lotta shaking going on!
It gets worse. There are a Lott, Trent! And you thought one of those was more than enough!
The imposition of a prepositional phrase, "a lot of", is what screws up a lot of students [not student, as you would undoubtedly suggest].
The preposition also causes consternation in other ways: You will recall that your teacher [probably] told you, "never end a sentence with a preposition." Thus, she would be unhappy when you said something like, "who did you give it to?", when she demanded "to whom did you give it?" I could open another vein, but I will now give it up.
For example: It is a machine that works all day. Parenthetical: It is a machine which works all day. In the old days some grammarians, like Ross of the New Yorker, demanded the writer use a comma before "which". In that case the above would read, "It is a machine, which works all day. You will note that my "like Ross of the New Yorker" is also a parenthetical phrase. In that case I used commas for more emphasis, but I think some people would say they are unnecessary. Now that you are thoroughly confused, I send my best regards.
Try this:
Whomever was the person who wrote this...
I think it should be whoever. I believe the word is in this case the subject of the verb, not the object.
Now, I am not really proud of the sentence that I constructed at first. I should have come up with a better example. In making one point, I opened up other issues. However, I still believe it should be whoever, not whomever in this poorly constructed example.
Yes, but with much hard work, I've managed to overcome that handicap ;)
Ending Sentences with Prepositions.The spurious rule about not ending sentences with prepositions is a remnant of Latin grammar, in which a preposition was the one word that a writer could not end a sentence with. But Latin grammar should never straitjacket English grammar. If the superstition is a “rule” at all, it is a rule of rhetoric and not of grammar, the idea being to end sentences with strong words that drive a point home. (See sentence ends.) That principle is sound, of course, but not to the extent of meriting lockstep adherence.
The idea that a preposition is ungrammatical at the end of a sentence is often attributed to 18th-century grammarians. But that idea is greatly overstated. Robert Lowth, the most prominent 18th-century grammarian, wrote that the final preposition “is an idiom, which our language is strongly inclined to: it prevails in common conversation, and suits very well with the familiar style in writing” (A Short Introduction to English Grammar, 1782). The furthest Lowth went was to urge that “the placing of the preposition before the relative is more graceful, as well as more perspicuous; and agrees much better with the solemn and elevated style” (id.). That in itself is an archaic view that makes modern writing stuffy; indeed, Lowth elsewhere made the same plea for hath: “Hath properly belongs to the serious and solemn style; has to the familiar” (id.). But in any event, Lowth's statement about prepositions was hardly intended as a “rule.”
Winston Churchill's witticism about the absurdity of this bugaboo should have laid it to rest. When someone once upbraided him for ending a sentence with a preposition, he rejoined, “That is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I shall not put.” Avoiding a preposition at the end of the sentence sometimes leads to just such a preposterous monstrosity.
Perfectly natural-sounding sentences end with prepositions, particularly when a verb with a preposition-particle appears at the end (as in follow up or ask for). E.g.: “The act had no causal connection with the injury complained of.” When one decides against such formal (sometimes downright stilted) constructions as of which, on which, and for which—and instead chooses the relative that—the preposition is necessarily sent to the end of the sentence: “This is a point on which I must insist” becomes far more natural as “This is a point that I must insist on.” And consider the following examples:
Correct and Natural - Correct and Stuffy
people worth talking to - people to whom it is worth talking
What are you thinking about? - About what are you thinking?
the man you were listening to - the man to whom you were listening
a person I have great respect for - a person for whom I have great respectIn 1947, a scholar summed up the point: “Those who insist that final prepositions are inelegant are taking from the English language one of its greatest assets—its flexibility—an advantage realized and practiced by all our greatest writers except a few who, like Dryden and Gibbon, tried to fashion the English language after the Latin” (Margaret M. Bryant, College English, 1947).
Good writers don't hesitate to end their sentences with prepositions if doing so results in phrasing that seems natural:
• “The peculiarities of legal English are often used as a stick to beat the official with” (Ernest Gowers, Plain Words: Their ABC, 1954).
• “[I]n the structure of the ‘coherent sentence,’ such particles are necessary, and, strip the sentence as bare as you will, they cannot be entirely dispensed with” (G. H. Vallins, The Best English, 1960).
• “It was the boys in the back room, after all, whom Marlene Dietrich felt comfortable drinking with” (N.Y. Times).
- The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style
"There are a lot of people" is wrong. "Lot" is the subject, and it is singular. The simplified sentence is: "Lot is", not "lot are." There is a prepositional phrase in the sentence, but it is "of people" not "a lot of." Prepositional phrases begin with the preposition.
Subject: lot
Verb: is
Adjective, modifying the subject: a
Prepositional phrase, modifying "lot": of people
Adverb: there
There is a lot of people.
Or, as someone else has pointed out: There is a boatload of people.
"Wrong: A group of people were there. A lot of people were there. There are a lot (of people/things) here.
Right: A group of people was there. A lot of people was there. There is a lot (of people/things) here.
Cf.: Lots of people were there. Dozens of people were there. Various groups of people were there. It may be better to say, "many people were there." "
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