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Hmmmm....hopefully Economics is a more practical subject than English and garners more respect. Having been an English major (at UC Berkeley, pre-campus riots) there is nothing more ridiculed than an English major. But, we did learn proper forms of speech and writing and learned when it was permissable to break the rules, such as starting a sentence with But.

However, I am dead serious. When do you abandon those forms we learned in the 1950s? I NEVER hear, nor see, “whom” used any more. Nor, “were” in the subjunctive. Nor, “nor”. Nor, the appropriate use of the objective and the subjective personal pronouns.

About 10 years ago I re-entered college to earn a Business Management degree. The course was created for working adult students, and we often were required to work in groups. I appointed myself as the language monitor, pulling together our group projects and making sure that we used the proper forms of end notes, grammar, spelling, margins, etc. Otherwise, we would have never earned our A grades. My group members (all much younger than I) just didn’t care; and neither did some of our professors. ‘Tis a pity!

I still use the phrase “To Whom It May Concern” when appropriate, I think about my grammar when composing an estimate, a bid, or an invoice, because I don’t want to look like a dumbass to a customer-that is bad for business.

If it makes you feel better, objective pronouns and the subjunctive are well- and oft-used in my household, including by the children. :) More generally, I think we just have to accept that the language changes, partly for reasons of laziness and social decay. The good news is that people who use it properly, and are more likely to be fun to be around, are now easier to spot.

BTW, I didn't mean to ping you to post 86; sorry about that.