Who lost 'whom'?  I am reminded of the "God is dead" bumper stickers of the
late '60s and the response stickers, "My God is alive, sorry about yours."
My 'whom' is alive and well--used in oral conversations and in emails and
letters to family and friends.  No one has ever commented upon my usage of
'whom.' 

In addition, I have clear rules for 'who/whom' vs. 'that' as relative
pronouns: who/whom is for humans and anthropomorphizations; that/which
for non-human.  To avoid confusion in restrictive and non-restrictive
clauses, I use 'that' for restrictive and 'which,' for non-restrictive
and have taught that as a suggestion--not a rule--to students who have
always found it helpful

If grammars have problems with my 'who' vs. 'that', I suggest that the
problem lies in the grammars--not the native speaker.

In addition, reading the postings of my learned (I'm being literal--not
sarcastic) colleagues, I wonder how many of them have taught English as 
a foreign language and what those colleagues think about the discussion. 

Scott Catledge
>
The loss of use of "whom" I think rather reflects that it was fairly 
late to make the shift from interrogative pronoun to relative and never 
really got established in the grammar in the first place.  So its shaky
status today is a reflection of its shaky history.
>
> Herb
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