Challenging some long-held grammar rules

Today, some pungent responses from readers ready to accept ungrammatical usages.

“I tend to follow the rules of grammar,” said Maren Swanson, a retired lawyer in Burnsville, “but one I hate and tend not to follow is the ‘proper’ use of the word ‘whom.’ Why? Because it is hardly used in everyday speech, it looks and sounds phony/pseudo-intelligent, and, most importantly, it draws attention to itself rather than to the substance of what is being written or said. I wish the ‘rule’ were changed.”

Grant me a vote, please, and I will throw in with Maren. I can’t abide saying, or any longer writing, things like “Whom do you love?” or “Whom are the Minnesota Lynx playing tonight?”

Jim Hazzard, a Minneapolis engineer, challenged another rule:

“How about: ‘He is taller than me’? Clearly incorrect; it obviously has to be: ‘He is taller than I (am).’ But using ‘me’ is so ubiquitous, it sounds weird to say ‘I’.”

Gordon Hughes of Eden Prairie, a retired city manager, challenged me, saying, in essence, “Hey, Gary, you don’t know everything.” He’s got me there:

“Either you erred or my 10th-grade grammar teacher in 1966 did! Miss Wick taught us that ‘the number’ is a singular subject but ‘a number’ is a plural subject. Thus, ‘there were a number of foreign correspondents who left Berlin’ is a plural.”

Do you buy, or reject, these readers’ views on breaking rules of grammar?

This column pays annual homage to three lovers of language for their priceless advice to readers: Joseph Conrad, who said his task was to make a reader hear, feel and, above all, see what he was writing about; and Pete Hamill, who said, simply, “Read.”

Now, lilting wisdom from that third sage — Jack Teagarden, the great jazz trombonist who sang these lines, among my favorites in the English language:

“Say it simple, so I can understand,

Use all the easy words at your command.

Talk real clear, don’t want no friction with your diction.”