This is why I tell my students to turn off the grammar checkers on their
computers (not to mention the fact that they don't understand the
instructions they are getting, anyway!).
Paul E. Doniger
----- Original Message -----
From: Wollin, Edith <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2001 4:09 PM
Subject: Re: who or whom
> For a little amusement on this issue, I just had the Word software grammar
> check tell me that I needed "whom" in this construction: "we know who you
> are."
>
> Edith Wollin
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Johanna Rubba [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2001 12:35 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: who or whom
>
>
> Thanks, Jeff, you've nicely depicted how messy it is to try to delimit
> and label dialects. Finding social features that consistently align with
> dialect features is probably impossible, especially if you want a
> fine-grained analysis.
>
> Perhaps objectively and scientifically class isn't a correct defining
> parameter for dialect differences in our society. When we consider
> language attitudes, however, I think class is an important social
> construct precisely because of the superior/inferior values that are
> attached to it. In a Hairston-like survey that I did with a class of
> mine, we found that dialect features associated with less-educated
> speakers (such as double negation and third-person 'don't') elicited far
> more consistently negative responses than dialect features that are
> nonstandard (that is, incorrect from the trad. grammar point of view)
> but appear in the dialect of educated speakers (such as 'between you and
> I' or failure to use 'whom' in an object position). Judging from their
> self-idenitifications, most of our respondents held positions that would
> be considered middle to upper-class. So the kinds of 'mistakes' that
> they themselves might make were judged much more acceptable than the
> kinds of 'mistakes' that people from less-successful groups might make.
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Johanna Rubba Associate Professor, Linguistics
> English Department, California Polytechnic State University
> One Grand Avenue * San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
> Tel. (805)-756-2184 * Fax: (805)-756-6374 * Dept. Phone. 756-2596
> * E-mail: [log in to unmask] * Home page:
> http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
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