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 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/