having problems with 'who' and 'send'

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Kind Villain

#221318 Sun, 30 Apr 06 09:58 PM

Hello! I'm having problems with the following sentence.

It seems as if you're having problems remembering who you've sent a letter to and who not.

The first problem is I can't understand whether I should use 'to' after 'letter' or not. And the second problem is the end of the sentence - and who not. Is it correct? Can someone enlighten me on this plz?

Kind Villain

Joined on Sun, Apr 30 2006

New Member (47)

Marius Hancu

#221325 Sun, 30 Apr 06 10:12 PM

>It seems as if you're having problems remembering who you've sent a letter to and who not.

"to" is very important there
I'd change both "who" to "whom"
and I'd rephrase

It seems as if you're having problems remembering to whom you've sent a letter and to whom you haven't.

Marius Hancu

Joined on Wed, Apr 26 2006

Montreal, Canada

Veteran Member (11,673)

Whom

Kind Villain

#221328 Sun, 30 Apr 06 10:15 PM

Well, I thought that whom would do better here but I wanted to know whether 'who' was correct. Can I say 'and to whom not' instead of 'and to whom you haven't'? Doesn't the expression 'and to whom you haven't' seem a bit formal to you?

Kind Villain

Expressions, Whom

Marius Hancu

#221332 Sun, 30 Apr 06 10:22 PM

search Yahoo with
"and to whom not"
(quotation marks are important!)
and you will find examples with the above, thus it is acceptable, at least to some extent

anyway
"and to who not"
is very rare, thus I think non-standard.

Marius Hancu

Quotation marks, Whom

Kind Villain

#221335 Sun, 30 Apr 06 10:31 PM

I usually google when I want to see how often something's used. 'And to whom not' sounds better to me but as far as I know, there's virtually no difference between 'who' and 'whom' in the vast majority of cases.

Kind Villain

Difference between, Whom

Pinenut

#221337 Sun, 30 Apr 06 10:39 PM

Kind Villain wrote:
Well, I thought that whom would do better here but I wanted to know whether 'who' was correct. Can I say 'and to whom not' instead of 'and to whom you haven't'? Doesn't the expression 'and to whom you haven't' seem a bit formal to you?

'who' is correct as long as grammar books tell you that you can use 'who' in place of 'whom'. By the same token, 'to who not' can be reaplaced by 'to whom not'. When you say, "and whom not', it is identical to 'to whom (you have) not (sent letters).' Those words in the parentheses are ommitted for the sake of brevity by avoiding repeating the same words that have been just mentioned.

Pinenut

Joined on Fri, Oct 14 2005

Illinois, U.S.A.

Full Member (108)

Expressions, Grammar, Whom

Marius Hancu

#221341 Sun, 30 Apr 06 10:50 PM

I've just observed there are many interesting related threads at this site if you click on the "Whom" button immediately under the original posting

BTW, Garner, in Modern American Usage, mentions that "whom" is still alive and well in the AmE, in relation with "to," and seemingly preferred in connection with "to," except in some cases