Please, please, this is supposed to be a happy presidency!
this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2025
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To each their own!
I personally think English sounds better when spoken well and enjoy doing so. "For Who the Bell Tolls" sounds silly and I think people missing whom tend to sound similarly silly.
Yes, I definitely see the appeal of legacy titles and phrases keeping the original words. It's like how "To thine own self be true" sounds nicer than "Be true to yourself." Doesn't mean I want to use "thine" in everyday speech, though.
After all, that book title is from archaic English: "Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee." It's telling that that's the first thing you thought of.
"Of which you thought." - I also enjoy not ending sentences with prepositions.
Again, I just think it makes everyday language better. Similar to having art on one's walls, doesn't improve anything other than aesthetics but that's enough to make it worthwhile to some.
I also would never use "k" instead of okay in a text but to each their own!
So you like to use formal English at all times; that's fine. All I'm saying is that language changes over time, and that change isn't always a bad thing. Sometimes it gets rid of needless complexity. However, things like "literally" meaning "figuratively," its complete opposite, I absolutely hate because it takes away from the usefulness of the word. I won't mourn "whom" any more than "thou," though.
I don't know if I'd call it formal (to me, formal means using sir, more conditionals and more emphasis on manners) so much as I enjoy speaking grammatically, the same way I like to use idiosyncratic words, all fun stuff that makes language more interesting. Yes, plain English, unencumbered by whom or unnecessarily large words is more simple but it is also less joyful. (In my cynical way, I wonder if I'll see textbooks with "k" instead of okay in my lifetime.)
Fully agree on literally (in part, Dave Cross broke me on that one years ago. "When you misuse that word, you are using it exactly incorrectly.") The other one that bugs me is nonplussed, which is becoming to mean its opposite to the point where if it's used it pretty much has no meaning because you have no way of knowing whether the speaker knows it actually means bewildered/startled or if they're using it incorrectly to mean the exact opposite.