LESSON 17 “Rules of Grammar’’ Again JAN: You spoke to us in one lesson about “rules of grammar”. Well, I was looking at a grammar book (not one of yours) and on one page it gave some teaching about the use of whom. I don’t think you have said anything to us about this, but some of the sentences it gave, and especially arule that it added, seemed rather strange to me. It said, for example: “A common mistake that students make is to say: Who do you want to see? Who is he speaking to? Who did you play with? These should be: Whom do you want to see? Whom is he speaking to? Whom did you play with? or, better still for the second and third ones: To whom is he speaking? With whom did you play? These forms are better because a preposition is generally placed immediately before the noun or pronoun that it governs, and you ought not to end a sentence with a preposition.” 120LESSON SEVENTEEN 121 What is your opinion, sir? MR. PRIESTLEY: Let us take the point about whom first. The relative pronoun and the interrogative pronoun who has three forms: who (nominative), whom (objective), whose (possessive). Here are examples of each: RELATIVE PRONOUN That is the man who spoke to me. That is the man whom I spoke to. or ‘That is the man to whom I spoke. That is the man whom I saw. That is the man whose house was burnt down. INTERROGATIVE PRONOUN Who is speaking now? Whom do you want to see? Whom are you looking at? Whose is this book, yours or. mine? Now in writing, and perhaps in formal speaking, we use whom when the relative pronoun or the interrogative pronoun is in the objective case. But in conversation, especially in informal col- loquial' speech, most people would use the interrogative pronoun who instead of whom. They would say, for example: Who do you want to see? Who did you speak to? Who are you looking at? 1 Don’t mistake colloquial speech for slang. Colloquial speech is the kind of speech that educated English people would use in natural, informal talk. 9—Il122 ESSENTIAL ENGLISH If the relative pronoun is in the objective case and if it is a defining relative, it is usually omitted in colloquial speech, e.g. That’s the man I spoke to. That’s the man I saw. * * * * Now let us come to the second point, the “rule”: “Never end a sentence with a preposition.” That is just nonsense. Practically every great writer and every speaker of English has broken that rule; in fact there are some prepositions! which are used in phrases that can only be put at the end of the sentence. They are usually prepositions that are closely associated with verbs. For example: It was worth waiting for. It’s not a thing to laugh about. When I went swimming, I handed him my watch fo take care of. Bread is a thing we can’t do without. HoB: Sir, I know a story about ending sentences with prepositions. MR. PRIESTLEY: Hob, there seems to be nothing you don’t know stories about. (And there’s another end preposition!) But let us have it by all means. HoB: It’s about Sir Winston Churchill when he was Prime Minister of England. He had written out an important speech that he was going to give, and he handed it to one of his secretaries to type. When he got it back he found that the secretary + Many of these prepositions have an adverbial force.LESSON SEVENTEEN 123 had gone through the speech and changed all the sentences that ended with a preposition. Sir Winston marked all these alterations in red ink and wrote underneath: “This is the sort of English up with which 1 will not put.” MR, PRIESTLEY: Very good, Hob. But there is a story about the funny effect you get if you get too many end prepositions. Hos: Oh, sir, tell us the story. MR. PRIESTLEY: Well, it’s about a very small boy who couldn’t read. He asked his mother to read to him, so she went to get a book; but it was not the one he wanted, and as soon as he saw it he said: “Oh, Mummy, what did you bring me that book to be read to out of for?” PepRO: Are there any occasions when you mustn’t have the “‘end preposition” ? MR. PRIESTLEY: Yes, there are. Here is one: “The unwillingness with which Hob comes to a grammar lesson, and the speed with which he goes away from it, have always amused me.” You couldn’t say “ The unwillingness he comes to a grammar lesson with” and “the speed he goes away from it with,” And now to end this lesson I want to tell you about a conversation that I took part in (or “in which I took part”). It was with Professor Grey. He’s a Professor of Ancient Languages. He knows so much about ancient languages that I "But this could be expressed more neatly by saying ““Hlob’s unwilling ness in coming . . . and his speed in going away .124 ESSENTIAL ENGLISH think he always lives in the past. He also has some very fixed ideas about English. My new book on. “Colloquial English” had just been published, and I happened to meet him on the station when we were both going in to London. “Oh, Priestley,” he said, “ you’re the very man I wanted to see... . About that book of yours «+. you know, Spoken English or something . . . I forget the exact name . . . did you—er—go over it carefully before it went to the printers ?”’ So of course I said, ‘‘Good heavens, Grey, yes. You don’t suppose I’d let them publish any- thing with my name to it without knowing whether they’d done it properly ?” So then he said: “Well, look here—er—I don’t want to hurt your feelings but, well, to put it bluntly, there are a lot of mistakes in it.”LESSON SEVENTEEN 125 So I said: “Really ? That’s interesting. Can you mention one off-hand ?” So he said: “Well, you’ve got two in one sentence.” I guessed what was coming as a matter of fact. But I kept quiet about it. I pretended to think he was referring to some misprints I hadn’t noticed, you see. So I just said: . “Hm! That’s rather serious. I’m sorry about that. I went through it very carefully indeed before it was printed.” So he went on: “Well, one of the mistakes may be a misprint. But the other can’t be. You’ve put a preposition at the end of a sentence. And you put who for whom, You've put ““Who’s it by ?” on the first page, and a little later you say, “It depends who you're speaking to”. Everyone’ll sce it directly they pick the book up. They’ll say, “That’s a fine person to learn English from! Why, he can’t talk it properly himself. Who does he expect to buy a book like that ? And both you and your publishers will be laughed at.” So of course I said: “Well, if anyone says that to me, I shall just say, ‘Well, what’s good enough for a Professor of Ancient Languages is good enough for me’.” He said, “Professor of Ancient Languages ? Who do you mean ?”’ So of course I said: “ You. You’ve just made the very mistakes you accuse me of. First you said, “That’s a fine person to126 ESSENTIAL ENGLISH learn English from” (that’s a preposition at the end of a sentence). Then you went on by saying “‘Who does he expect to buy a book like that ?” (that’s who instead of whom). You said I and my publishers would be laughed at (a preposition at the end of the sentence), and you've just finished by saying “Who do you mean ?” (that’s another who instead of whom). _ Of course he denied he said so. People like Grey never do admit they talk that way. And of course you can’t prove it unless they’ve been talking into a gramophone. Still, he knew all the time he had said it, so he began to say, “Oh, well, I was only saying what other people would say. Very likely they wouldn’t speak correctly.” So I said, “‘ You know perfectly well that you —and ninety-nine out of every hundred edu- cated Englishmen—always talk like that.” So he said: “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” You see ? He’d put a preposition at the end of the sentence again! Then he saw what he’d done and began correcting himself. Of course I couldn’t help laughing, and that put him in a bad temper. He’s not spoken to me since. EXERCISES I. Explain why “whom” and not“ who” is used in the following sentences: 1. I met a boy whom you know. 2. Do you know the boy to whom I am referring? 3. Yes, I know the boy whom you mean.