Search results for 'tag:Indirect questions tag:American English' matching tags 'Indirect questions' and 'American English'

Re: Who/Whom

CalifJim — Wed, 30 Mar 2005 03:50:57 GMT

Let's say that you want to speak everyday American English, not write a formal paper. In that case you would not go far wrong to use "whom" immediately after a preposition, "who" otherwise.

Since the sentence initial position is never after a preposition (by definition of "initial position"), never start a sentence with "whom". In everyday conversation we even avoid the cases where "whom" comes after a preposition, so "whom" is pretty much restricted to writing.

At the beginning of a spoken sentence in everyday AmE:

"Who is calling?"
"Who is speaking?"
"Who knows where it is?"
"Who did you invite?"
"Who did you visit?"
"Who did the sweater belong to?"
"Who did you get that from?"

As an indirect question:

I asked who was calling.
I asked who you invited.

At the beginning of a relative clause:

The person who called asked for an address.

In formal writing many of these would be "whom" instead of "who", but not normally in everyday conversation.

CJ

Re: Articles

hela — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 11:16:06 GMT

Dear moderators,

May I ask you where do you all come from, i.e., Mr Micawber, Mr Pedantic (British?), CalifJim (American?) and Just The Truth? I have nothing against the British or the Americans or any other English native speaker, I just want to know the subtle differences there might be between American English and British English. By the way I'm from Tunisia (North Africa). My mother tongue is Arabic, but don't ask me anything about my language because I know nothing about Classical Arabic . I only speak our dialect which is just a spoken language. I'm much better in French though .

1) Can I say: "Cocker spaniels are among the most popular pet dogs" ?

2) "When will you be ready? I don't know when I will be ready."
I understand why in the first sentence we have a future but not in the second since it is not an indirect question.

See you,
Hela

PS: Thank you Mr Pedantic for the exercise. I'll do it next week hopefully 'cause I won't be home before Wednesday 9.