{"id":881,"date":"2013-03-27T05:34:49","date_gmt":"2013-03-27T09:34:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnestes.org\/?p=881"},"modified":"2013-03-27T05:34:49","modified_gmt":"2013-03-27T09:34:49","slug":"to-whom-it-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnestes.net\/?p=881","title":{"rendered":"To Whom It Matters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Megan Garber calls -whom- “America’s least favorite pronoun,” which is probably true and makes me out of step with my compatriots. I am one to whom the word speaks, and I teach resistance. She chronicles its ills and the forces at work to kill this relic. I venerate relics.<\/p>\n

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We break the old rules, then, because new rules are, effectively, replacing them. Few of us still use whom in speech, and we\u2019ve adopted that practice in our writing, particularly in more-casual forms (e\u2011mails, texts, IMs). What scholars refer to as \u201csecondary orality,\u201d the tendency of written language to adopt the characteristics of speech, is for many of us the new linguistic reality. According to the language blogger Stan Carey, \u201cWhom is unnecessary\u2014indeed, it\u2019s out of place\u2014where a conversational tone is sought.\u201d We type with our telephones and we chat with our keyboards and we write, increasingly, as we talk. And\u2014to whom it may concern\u2014our words rise, and fall, accordingly.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Megan Garber calls -whom- “America’s least favorite pronoun,” which is probably true and makes me out of step with my compatriots. I am one to whom the word speaks, and I teach resistance. She chronicles its ills and the forces at work to kill this relic. I venerate relics. We break the old rules, then, because new rules are, effectively, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnestes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnestes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnestes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnestes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnestes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/johnestes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnestes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnestes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnestes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}