Just ♥ Words—trash the M in "whom"

Don’t do math (can’t). But do do grammar. (Notice I violated grammar here because I can. I'm so good…the grammar police always give me a pass.)

I believe in grammar—its rules for clarity of expression—so others can make sense of what we try to say.

Nonetheless, there is one grammatical rule that needs to go: the "m" in the objective case of the pronoun "who" … that would be "whom."

That m is a nasty, pretentious little hold over from the days when Latin was the sine qua non (see "bees knees") of language.

It's along the same lines as that other silly rule about never ending a sentence with a preposition. And we all know what THAT led to: Winston's famous quip, "THIS IS SOMETHING UP WITH WHICH I WILL NOT PUT."

WHO WHOM—The test

THIS?     —    Give the award to  WHOEVER   deserves it.
Or this?  —    Give the award to WHOMEVER  deserves it.

THIS?    —   Give the award to those  WHO  you think deserve it.
Or this?  —  Give the award to those  WHOM  you think deserve it.

The who / whom imbroglio is overrated.  Clarity can be achieved perfectly well without that niggling little letter.  Who? Whom? Does it matter? We get the point.

The answers
Read at your own peril.

Answer:  Give the award to WHOEVER deserves it. 
“Whomever” is not the prepositional object of  “to.”  Rather, WHOEVER  is the subject of a dependent clause, “whoever deserves it.”  The entire clause is the prepositional object.  Phew!

Answer:  Give the award to those WHO you think deserve it. 
“Whom” is not the object of  “you think…whom.”   “You think” is parenthetical…you can remove it altogether. So the “who” becomes a relative pronoun for “those” and the subject of the relative clause “who deserve it.”

See what I mean? So much ink spilled over a measly m!

The rules of grammar, in this particular case, are uselessly arcane. It's like being a guest at an EDITH WHARTON dinner party while you try to figure out THE OYSTER FORK… from the FISH FORK… from the SALAD FORK… from the DESSERT FORK. We all have better things to worry about.

So here’s my personal campaign for a better world: let's TRASH THE m in whom!