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Elithrion comments on [SEQ RERUN] You're Calling *Who* A Cult Leader? - Less Wrong
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Comments (16)
Is using "whom" uncool or something? Maybe I'm just elitist (in a bad way) for liking it.
Whom use, even correct use but especially incorrect use, can signal an excessive concern with pedantry.
Speaking of pedantry, I have no doubt that you meant:
Alternatively, if it's done by someone whom you already know decently well, and who you know isn't really a crazy obsessive pedant, it can instead signal a liking of international or British English over American.
It's possible to avoid the "whom" and be grammatical: "*Who* is Being Called a Cult Leader By You?".
"If there's something strange in your neighborhood, who is gonna be called by you? Ghostbusters!"
I use "who" for the subject form or when "whom" sounds awful.
That sounds like good policy, although there may be significant variation in what sounds awful to different people (specifically, "whom" is generally more popular outside the US). "Who" is probably the safer choice when in doubt, admittedly.
I'm pretty sure it should be "who", since the title is an inversion of "Who are you calling a cult leader?".
"call" here is a transitive verb, so the following object is in the accusative case, and "whom" is a the appropriate declension of "who". Of course, there are almost no traces of declensions in modern English, hence the confusion.
Nope, in fact that one should also be "Whom are you calling a cult leader?" Who is the subject form, i.e. it's supposed to be used when it's the "who" person that is doing the actions. In this case, though, the subject is "you", who is doing the action ("calling" someone something), and the object is the someone being called something ("whom").
For sake of colloquial informality some purposefully adopt incorrect grammar. Regardless of whether that was the intent, such is the effect; a better question:
"Does informality conveyed through use of colloquialisms benefit the author's purposes more than correct use of grammar?"
The above line of enquiry presumes correct grammar is desirable - a separate but sound debate prerequisite answering the former question.