An
Atlantic Wire column discusses the punctuation used in Obama's campaign slogan. Should a period be used after a one-word slogan? Alternatives to the period might carry different connotations:
Forward!
Forward?
Forward ...
You can read the rest at the link, but what caught my eye was a sentence in the final paragraph:
Whomever is right and whomever is wrong, you have to give the Obama
campaign credit for one thing, at least: They did spell the word right.
The boldfaced phrase seems wrong. It's neither the subject nor the object of the sentence, but my instinct is that each "whomever" should be replaced by "whoever." Can someone offer a definitive pronouncement here?
"Whoever." For the same reason that "I don't know who is right and who is wrong" is correct (and "I don't know whom is right and whom is wrong" is incorrect).
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly right. In the sentence "I don't know who is right," "who" is the subject of the clause. Whenever there's a subject, it's "who." Whenever it's an object, on the other hand, as in "I don't know with whom I'm speaking," it's whom. In the "Whomever is..." sentence, the person who is right and the person who is wrong are both subjects being discussed, and thus "who."
DeleteMore here:
http://web.ku.edu/~edit/whom.html
I'm a grammar nerd of sorts, but I'm also a marketing guy. It's a convention (that I sometimes use) to punctuate a sentence fragment or single word with a period. It gives the message a feel of a firm, declarative statement and invokes a determined tone when you read it.
ReplyDelete"Whoever" is the subject of "is" (the state verb or being verb).
ReplyDeleteWhatever!
ReplyDeleteI guess the lesson hear is that while being a Grammar Nazi has it' rewards and all, for Gawds' sake make sure you're smug little pronoucements don't contain any grammatical errors of there own. People living in glass houses and all of that.
ReplyDeleteWho(ever) vs whom(ever) is generally pretty easy to decide: replace it with 'he' or 'him'. If 'he' fits (eg, 'he goes there') use 'who'. If 'him' fits (eg, 'the bell tolls for him') use 'whom'. Failing that, use 'who' all the time because it's never wrong, whereas 'whom' IS sometimes wrong and makes you look like a pompous windbag slightly more often than that.
ReplyDeleteAs regards the full stop, I think you're pretty much allowed to do what you want. It's a style choice and maybe it's there to make the statement seem more definite and confident.
In either case they should have borne Muphry's Law in mind.
Ugh. If you don't know how to use "whom," don't use it. "whom" isn't, like, THE OFFICIAL VERSION OF WHO or anything and people throw it around sometimes like it is. I WANT TO SOUND IMPORTANT, I'LL USE WHOM.
ReplyDeleteHere's a totally awesome tip: if you would use "him" as the subject, use "whom." "To whom did I introduce myself?" "to him." "who broke the lamp?" "he did." "whoever is right?" "he is."
This (Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation) and this (Grammar Girl) seem to support your conclusion.
ReplyDeleteThe word you're looking for is "whosoever".
ReplyDeleteI think.
Maybe ...
HE is right and HE is wrong = Who is right and who is wrong
ReplyDeleteFor whom are you looking = I'm looking for HIM
Who = He
Whom = Him
It be a clever slogan, none the least. :-)
ReplyDeleteI think this slogan is intended to answer the question, "Where the heck are we going?", and this single word answer is correct grammer (IMHO).
...I can only wish it that was true...
I learned in a linguistics course that "whom" is an affectation imposed on English by medieval (actual time period uncertain - memory foggy) church scholars who wanted to make English more like Latin. I try to avoid using it.
ReplyDeleteAs for the period, if there's no verb, it's not a sentence. I supposed the verb "move" is implied, though, so literary license applies in this case.
Delete