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 > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > 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/ > 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/