Thread: which one is correct

  1. #1
    DESTINY BEN10's Avatar
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    which one is correct

    Yesterday my friend told me this:
    who are you?
    This one is incorrect.
    whom are you?
    this one is correct.
    Is this really so?
    HOPE YOU UNDERSTAND.......

    By associating with wise people you will become wise yourself
    It's fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure
    We've got to put a lot of money into changing behavior


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  2. #2
    Deprecated Dae's Avatar
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    Every grammar nazi on the web approves "who are you" unless the sentence is continued, in which case they use "whom are you."

    Anyway...

    It's not "anyways" it's "anyway."

    are you who?
    is are who?
    are who you?
    Warning: Have doubt in anything I post.

    GCC 4.5, Boost 1.40, Code::Blocks 8.02, Ubuntu 9.10 010001000110000101100101

  3. #3
    Officially An Architect brewbuck's Avatar
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    "whom" is an indirect object. As such, it must be prefixed with a preposition.

    "To whom are you speaking?"

    If there's no preposition, there's no indirect object, and no "whom." In such cases you should use "who."
    Code:
    //try
    //{
    	if (a) do { f( b); } while(1);
    	else   do { f(!b); } while(1);
    //}

  4. #4
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BEN10 View Post
    this one is correct.
    Is this really so?
    You have it backward. Here's a great sentence:
    An indirect object precedes the direct object and tells to whom or for whom the action of the verb is done and who is receiving the direct object.
    So "whom are you" might be considered INCORRECT, altho I think the further back you go, the more normal it was to use whom, with "who" being the exceptional case; ie, you could always use whom in the place of who, but you could not always use who in the place of whom. Today it is more the other way around.

    "For whom are you looking?"
    "Who is there?"
    "Who goes?"
    "Whom shall I tell?"
    C programming resources:
    GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
    The C Book -- nice online learner guide
    Current ISO draft standard
    CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
    3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

  5. #5
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    I struggled with this one myself until I started trying to study the language more closely. The proper way is to follow brewbuck advice and identify the constituent parts of the phrase. After some time you'll unconsciously memorize the rule. Or you can always ignore it in common speech as MK27 suggests since it is indeed falling into disuse. Or so it's my perception.

    In any case here's a trick to try and get the answer, if you are not into prepositions, indirect objects, and the like.

    The m test:

    Try to rebuild the phrase by including he/him or they/them. If you use the m version, you'll need 'whom'. Otherwise it is 'who'.

    Whom shall I tell?
    Shall I tell them? You wouldn't say, 'Shall I tell they?'

    Who is there?
    He is there. You wouldn't say, 'Him is there'.

    Whom is this present for?
    Is this present for him? You wouldn't say, 'Is this present for he?'

    I forget where I learned this trick. It's effective since it is nothing more than an abstraction of the rules for proper usage of these pronouns. But if you can dive deeper into the language grammar, do so. I often forget all about it and later realized I used the wrong pronoun. That's the disadvantage of these... tricks.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  6. #6
    Hail to the king, baby. Akkernight's Avatar
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    For Whom The Bell Tolls, anyone?

    EDIT: My post count is no longer that of the devil :O (this is post nr. 667)
    Currently research OpenGL

  7. #7
    Devil's Advocate SlyMaelstrom's Avatar
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    I have trouble taking part in discussions like this because you always have an advantage in your first language that perhaps second-language people cannot fully understand or take advantage of. To me, the easiest way of understanding whether to use "who" or "whom" is simply to say it both ways in my head. The fact that I've been listening to English speech constantly for 23 years lends me the advantage of the "Which sounds correct?" test. You really can't say too many phrases that use "who" or "whom" that I haven't heard several dozen times in my life... so much to the point that I know which to use simply because the alternative sounds unfamiliar. I'm sure this same case is true for all people in their first language. Anyway, because of it... I never can feel that I'll give a good explanation unless I take it directly from a textbook.
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  8. #8
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mario F. View Post
    Or you can always ignore it in common speech as MK27 suggests since it is indeed falling into disuse. Or so it's my perception.
    Actually I didn't mean "further back" as in a generation or two, I meant centuries, ie, that the word whom is older than who, so there was a point (prior to Shakespeare, who uses it correctly the same way it is used today, I believe) when people just said whom. "Common misuse" has probably always existed and is still considered the same thing now, common misuse -- ain't it?

    I would definitely say that it's subtle enough that if English is your second language, no native speaker be perturbed or blink at your "mistake", ie, it doesn't matter and don't worry about that.
    Last edited by MK27; 09-04-2009 at 09:01 AM.
    C programming resources:
    GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
    The C Book -- nice online learner guide
    Current ISO draft standard
    CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
    3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

  9. #9
    DESTINY BEN10's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SlyMaelstrom View Post
    I have trouble taking part in discussions like this because you always have an advantage in your first language that perhaps second-language people cannot fully understand or take advantage of. To me, the easiest way of understanding whether to use "who" or "whom" is simply to say it both ways in my head. The fact that I've been listening to English speech constantly for 23 years lends me the advantage of the "Which sounds correct?" test. You really can't say too many phrases that use "who" or "whom" that I haven't heard several dozen times in my life... so much to the point that I know which to use simply because the alternative sounds unfamiliar. I'm sure this same case is true for all people in their first language. Anyway, because of it... I never can feel that I'll give a good explanation unless I take it directly from a textbook.
    Yeah, you're absolutely right. Me too use the "which sounds more correct" test, this helps me a lot. But in some cases, everyone is used to misinterpret the language and that's where I get stuck and too misinterprets it.
    BTW I want to ask all those people on this forum whose first language is English that did you ever encounter a word whose meanong you don't know(obviously in English)? I'm asking this because there are several exams in which tough English vocabulary is asked and I just want to know that does this gives an advantage to people whose first language is English. Or asked in the other way, which sounds funny, do English people refer a dictionary ever?
    HOPE YOU UNDERSTAND.......

    By associating with wise people you will become wise yourself
    It's fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure
    We've got to put a lot of money into changing behavior


    PC specifications- 512MB RAM, Windows XP sp3, 2.79 GHz pentium D.
    IDE- Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition

  10. #10
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    English is not my primary language. But isn't it obvious that English speakers will have their trouble with the language also? This is true of any language, I'd wager.

    I'm pretty sure not every native language speaker knows the meaning of nudiustertian without having to go to their dictionary... if it even is there. Or even see an interrobang for what it is.

    Quote Originally Posted by MK27 View Post
    Actually I didn't mean "further back" as in a generation or two, I meant centuries, ie, that the word whom is older than who, so there was a point (prior to Shakespeare, who uses it correctly the same way it is used today, I believe) when people just said whom. "Common misuse" has probably always existed and is still considered the same thing now, common misuse -- ain't it?
    Yeah. I remember reading something about that when I started searching for how to better use these pronouns. I think whom is falling indeed in misuse. I've seen and heard many native English speakers "incorrectly" using the who pronoun both in colloquial and conventional speech... although truth be told, I'm not sure journalists or politicians qualify as English language guardians. Certainly they don't around here, with the Portuguese language.
    Last edited by Mario F.; 09-04-2009 at 09:55 AM.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  11. #11
    Devil's Advocate SlyMaelstrom's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BEN10 View Post
    I want to ask all those people on this forum whose first language is English that did you ever encounter a word whose meanong you don't know(obviously in English)?
    Of course... my vocabulary is horrid, in my opinion. Though, compared to your average American, I probably have a very good vocabulary. Amongst a more intellectual crowd, however, I look like an idiot.

    Let me give you an example of how bad my vocabulary is... just recently I was doing a crossword puzzle in USA Today and I encounted at least a dozen cases where I had a word that was missing just one more letter and I still had no idea what it was.
    Last edited by SlyMaelstrom; 09-04-2009 at 10:47 AM.
    Sent from my iPadŽ

  12. #12
    Lurking whiteflags's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BEN10 View Post
    BTW I want to ask all those people on this forum whose first language is English that did you ever encounter a word whose meanong you don't know(obviously in English)?
    Is it uncommon to work with vocabulary books in other parts of the world during your elementary school years? I still remember getting vocabulary books up until about sixth grade, and having a new list of words to master spelling and defining every week. It's just different in that I learned English while the language center of my brain was especially malleable.

    Losing my imagination since I was younger has made me sad, though. My everyday vocabulary is different from when I was eight, and yet I say much less than I used to.

  13. #13
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by whiteflags View Post
    Losing my imagination since I was younger has made me sad, though. My everyday vocabulary is different from when I was eight, and yet I say much less than I used to.
    LOL! Cheer up whiteflags, it's probably because yer a republican.
    C programming resources:
    GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
    The C Book -- nice online learner guide
    Current ISO draft standard
    CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
    3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

  14. #14
    DESTINY BEN10's Avatar
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    Ok. Here's another one. Which one is correct?
    1.
    Lots of people say it like this.
    2.
    Lot of people say it like this.
    HOPE YOU UNDERSTAND.......

    By associating with wise people you will become wise yourself
    It's fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure
    We've got to put a lot of money into changing behavior


    PC specifications- 512MB RAM, Windows XP sp3, 2.79 GHz pentium D.
    IDE- Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition

  15. #15
    The larch
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    I think it's "a lot" or "lots".
    I might be wrong.

    Thank you, anon. You sure know how to recognize different types of trees from quite a long way away.
    Quoted more than 1000 times (I hope).

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