Grammar Moses: To whom it may concern

I remember as if it were yesterday the last email I received from Ted “Dictionary Man” Utchen in the spring of 2021 shortly before he died. It was all about how people’s brains misfire when they think about whether to use “who” or “whom.”

“Dear Mr. Grammarian: Today I write to you about the problem with 'who' and 'whom.' (It) is simply that people pay insufficient attention to how they are writing when they write. Or perhaps they flunked fifth-grade English, who knows?” he wrote. “Now, in today's Daily Herald you can read, 'The major lenders have undergone an evaluation of … WHO they'll approve.' Now the error is that the verb 'approve' is taking an object, and it should have read 'WHOM they'll approve.'

Reader George Dorner reminded me of this constant struggle more recently.

To clarify, use “who” whenever you use SUBJECTIVE pronouns I, he, she, we or they. Use “whom” when using OBJECTIVE pronouns me, him, her, them and us.

If you can answer a question using a subjective pronoun or reorder the sentence using the same verb and a subjective pronoun, then use “who.”

And you always use “whom” after a preposition at the beginning of a sentence.

For example, if a server asks, “To whom should I give this dinner tab?” always point and answer: “Him.”

Groaners

My high school pal Scott Schuster has a bad habit of sending me dad jokes. I’ve threatened him with bodily harm, but he persists.

A “dad joke,” by the way, is a term coined in 1987 to be kid-friendly. They almost force your eyes to roll.

So today, I leave you with a smattering of dad jokes that language afficionados like you can share with young people to remind them of how old you are.

I’ve not been able to track down the origins of these jokes, but that’s a fool’s errand with internet jokes anyway. I’ve thrown in a couple of mine for good measure.

• Past, present and future walked into a bar. It was tense.

• The jury consisted of an assortment of nouns, verbs, articles, an adjective, a conjunction and some punctuation marks. Together they made a sentence.

• Never date anyone with an apostrophe. They’re possessive.

•“Your dinner” versus “You’re dinner”: One makes you hungry; one makes you dead.

• What do you call Santa’s helpers? Subordinate Clauses.

• Double negatives are a no-no.

• When I went to school there were only 25 letters in the English alphabet. Nobody knew Y.

• Is there a word that uses all of the vowels, including Y? Unquestionably.

• A criminal’s greatest asset is his lie ability.

Write carefully!

• Jim Baumann is vice president/executive editor of the Daily Herald. You can buy Jim’s book, “Grammar Moses: A humorous guide to grammar and usage,” at grammarmosesthebook.com. Write him at jbaumann@dailyherald.com and put “Grammar Moses” in the subject line. You also can friend or follow Jim at facebook.com/baumannjim.