So rather than guess any further, I'm going to turn this over to my readers. I'm hoping in particular that someone used to feel this way—shutting down an impulse to praise someone else highly, or feeling that it was cultish to praise someone else highly—and then had some kind of epiphany after which it felt, not allowed, but rather, quite normal.
Always safer to be a critic than to earnestly praise something and open yourself up to sneering by critics.
On the other hand, some of what may be taken as distancing yourself from the prophet may just be the natural, most efficient way to accurately identify yourself. "I like him, except for a, b, c."
Whom use, even correct use but especially incorrect use, can signal an excessive concern with pedantry.
Whom use...can signal an excessive concern with pedantry
Speaking of pedantry, I have no doubt that you meant:
"Whom" use
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.
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.
It's possible to avoid the "whom" and be grammatical: "*Who* is Being Called a Cult Leader By You?".
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.
I'm hoping in particular that someone used to feel this way—shutting down an impulse to praise someone else highly, or feeling that it was cultish to praise someone else highly—and then had some kind of epiphany after which it felt, not allowed, but rather, quite normal.
I think there is a necessary distinction between matter-of-fact praising someone highly, and engaging in various sucking-up behaviours such as echoing particular forms of words, or quoting-as-authority. The latter do leave an unpleasant taste and in those cases I can understand the "cult" reaction.
Amusingly, the web page accusing Paul Graham of being a cult leader is down for the count, and despite my best efforts I can't find a Google or other cache of the actual text of the original post.
It's almost as if... someone... deliberately removed it.
+ evidence for paul-graham-being-an-apparently-damn-successful cult leader.
In fact, the best indicator of being a masterful cult leader is that no one suspects you! wait...
Today's post, You're Calling *Who* A Cult Leader? was originally published on 22 March 2009. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
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