What the whomst?!

September 27, 2023 5:29 PM

Back in the spring of 2022, professor of linguistics David Pesetsky was talking to an undergraduate class about relative clauses… Before long a student, Kanoe Evile ’23, raised her hand. “How does this account for the ‘whom of which’ construction?” Evile asked. Pesetsky, who has been teaching linguistics at MIT since 1988, had never encountered the phrase “whom of which” before. “I thought, ‘What?’” Pesetsky recalls.

Evile and Pesetsky have just published the paper, “Wh-which relatives and the existence of pied piping” in the journal Glossa. (Via MetaFilter’s own adamg)

posted by Horace Rumpole (126 comments total)

Fuck the theoretical retro-justifications, it's just so wrong to my ears.
posted by wenestvedt at 5:43 PM on September 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

"The expression is not random gibberish."

Correct, it's gibberish with rules.
posted by 3.2.3 at 5:52 PM on September 27, 2023 [15 favorites]

it's just so wrong to my ears.

I am a traditionalist about editorializing in FPPs, but I was astonished to read that this was something native speakers of English were regularly saying.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 5:52 PM on September 27, 2023 [15 favorites]

> That amused Pesetsky, for whom which the paper’s unresolved issues remain a subject of keen curiosity.
posted by glonous keming at 5:57 PM on September 27, 2023

I can't work out how it adds any extra meaning to just "who", eg:

> Our striker, whom of which is our best player, scores a lot of goals
> Our striker, who is our best player, scores a lot of goals
posted by nickzoic at 6:04 PM on September 27, 2023 [22 favorites]

It's not grammatical to me, but that doesn't matter. Discovering a new bit of syntax is fun, and kudos to Evile and Pesetsky for noticing it and doing work on it.

Try not to harsh the buzz with endless comments saying it's wrong to you. Welcome to how language works: not precisely the same for everyone.
posted by zompist at 6:06 PM on September 27, 2023 [28 favorites]

was in a Connecticut state government document

"Whom of which"?! In MY state's official documents??! It's more likely than you'd think!

Akshually it's "whomever of which" which makes an okay amount of sense in context:

"(b) The task force shall consist of the following members:"
snip
"(4) Two appointed by the majority leader of the Senate, one of whom shall be a member of the Workers' Compensation Legal Advisory Panel or the Workers' Compensation Medical Advisory Panel, whomever of which is available for any scheduled meeting, and one of whom is a member of the Connecticut State Medical Society..."
posted by Baethan at 6:08 PM on September 27, 2023 [32 favorites]

I can't work out how it adds any extra meaning to just "who"

Gets you two words closer to the minimum word requirement on your English homework.
posted by Reyturner at 6:09 PM on September 27, 2023 [33 favorites]

Exactly. It makes no sense to me, at least not now, but descriptivism is the way to go if you don’t want to be the kind of person who decides that it’s the children who are wrong. Besides, I’m glad that I only find it baffling and not profoundly irritating.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:10 PM on September 27, 2023 [7 favorites]

Wonder if the construct has always been implied by "who" being overloaded with multiple functions. English is weird y'all and this sounds weird but nifty that it's functionally correct.
posted by drewbage1847 at 6:14 PM on September 27, 2023

Gets you two words closer to the minimum word requirement on your English homework.

This may in fact be worth doing a followup study on because it feels way too plausable.
posted by markolson at 6:19 PM on September 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

> Gets you two words closer to the minimum word requirement on your English homework.

Like "in order to" ...

> Exactly. It makes no sense to me, at least not now, but descriptivism is the way to go [...]

Oh yeah, it's a perfectly interesting thing to study even if it doesn't make sense, maybe even because it makes no sense.
posted by nickzoic at 6:23 PM on September 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

My assumption is that “whom of which” is used tongue-in-cheek as a signifier that you’re trying to be fancy or sound important, in a similar way to “whomst” in some classic tweets. But it’s also possible that it’s now being earnestly used to connote formality.
posted by Jon_Evil at 6:26 PM on September 27, 2023 [6 favorites]

Looking at the examples in the paper I am struck that an awful lot of them (though not all) could be glossed as "who, among that group". E.g. "Our 7th figure in the set is one of the show’s main reoccurring characters, whom of which we all love to hate.", "Don cherished being around people and he never met a person whom which he would not engage in a conversation."

I could see this starting out naturally as a way of trying to clarify the antecedent of "who" in a sentence with multiple candidates, and then gradually bleeding out into less specific uses.
posted by Not A Thing at 6:30 PM on September 27, 2023 [7 favorites]

I am not being reflexively prescriptivist: I admit that it might be discovered (ex post facto) to follow English grammar. But it just seems so...clumsy.

The Youths will speak however they want, fine, sure -- but this reminds me of a child calling the school office and saying things that they think will make them Sound Like A Grown-Up.

(Goddamn, I turned old, didn't I? Like, right in this very thread?)
posted by wenestvedt at 6:33 PM on September 27, 2023 [19 favorites]

Whuh of wha? or Wha of whuh?
That is the question.
posted by y2karl at 6:34 PM on September 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

It's a perfectly cromulent phrase.
posted by Saxon Kane at 6:43 PM on September 27, 2023 [12 favorites]

I swear I've seen "whom which" before & would politely ignore it in a sentence.

Hm. Whomwhich.

Anyone want to go in on my new business idea for a food truck? I'm thinking pretentious sandwiches, we can park up by Yale, they'll love it
posted by Baethan at 6:45 PM on September 27, 2023 [7 favorites]

Whomst there it is
posted by aubilenon at 6:47 PM on September 27, 2023 [34 favorites]

Does the Whomofwhich come with any sides?
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 6:52 PM on September 27, 2023 [4 favorites]

On the menu, the sides are under the heading “subordinate clauses”
posted by Jon_Evil at 6:55 PM on September 27, 2023 [17 favorites]

I’m not a linguist nor a scholar of older versions of English, but I have read Chaucer and Tristan and Isolde and shorter shorter selections in Middle English, all my Tolkien of course, and took a class in Old English. I’ve also read a surprising number of legal documents for a non-lawyer. I know ‘thee’ from ‘thou’, ‘whom’ vs ‘who’ vs ‘whomst’, ‘that’ from ‘which’, and can understand more formal writing.

I have never heard nor seen “whom of which” before. At least not that I remember.

“Whomever of which” sounds slightly more reasonable to my ears, though still clunky, and I can’t recall ever reading anything with that construction either.

Kids these days definitely use some superfluous phrasing at times in their academic writing that I get to see, however. I assume because they think it sounds smarter and more formal. Don’t get me started on “that said”.
posted by eviemath at 6:58 PM on September 27, 2023 [10 favorites]

Does the Whomofwhich come with any sides?

Just Subordinate Slaws
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:59 PM on September 27, 2023 [25 favorites]

There used to be a band around here called Whoom Elements and I thought it was a pretty good name.

There's lots of "whomst" on Mastodon these days, but used facetiously for the most part, from what I can tell. Making odd linguistic constructs that people have to jiggle the meaning out of can be fun.
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:03 PM on September 27, 2023

I would write:

”Don cherished being around people and he never met a person with whom he would not engage in a conversation."

if for some reason I was worried about “who” on its own being too imprecise (though that is not a worry I would have in this particular sentence).

The “of which” in ”Our 7th figure in the set is one of the show’s main reoccurring characters, whom of which we all love to hate." is simply wrong, based on my understanding of grammar. This isn’t a “whom, among that group” usage; it’s simply a clause further describing or identifying the specific one of the show’s main recurring characters being referred to.
posted by eviemath at 7:07 PM on September 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

Don’t get me started on “that said”.

Don’t tell me how to live my life!

Having said that, is it specifically “that said” or are you also bothered by variations on that theme … were there specific people whom which you were exposed, that soured you on certain rhetorical cliches?

(I am genuinely curious actually)
posted by wabbittwax at 7:08 PM on September 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

"Whom of which" seems like a jokey combination/corruption of "some of whom" and "some of which" (both of which are a bit fancy but otherwise cromulent). I kept expecting the article to mention that but it didn't so I'm mentioning it now.
posted by wilberforce at 7:08 PM on September 27, 2023 [9 favorites]

I tried above to use “whom which” in a sentence. I tried real hard. I do not think I succeeded because I don’t know why anyone would ever WANT to put those words in that order.
posted by wabbittwax at 7:11 PM on September 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

I would like cheese on my whomwich please. But no onions.
posted by wabbittwax at 7:12 PM on September 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

which whom is referring to who and when.
posted by clavdivs at 7:13 PM on September 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

Eh, it’s a derail, but in my particular region people way over-use “that said”, often misusing it in the process. It should mean something roughly the same as “notwithstanding what was just said”, where what follows is an exception to what came before or is otherwise contrasted against the previous thought somehow. Lots of my students (and not a few of my colleagues) just use it as a generic connector; often when no connector is needed, so it ends up just being extraneous and meaningless filler.
posted by eviemath at 7:13 PM on September 27, 2023 [7 favorites]

Personally, I don't find it any more odd than 'cease and desist', 'null and void', etc.
posted by signal at 7:13 PM on September 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

To cease doing something is to stop doing an action one is currently engaged in. To desist from doing something is to avoid doing an action again in the future that one isn’t necessarily currently engaged in. So “cease and desist” means “stop doing that, and don’t start it up again” - it does mean more than either word separately. As any rules-lawyering teenager will tell you:

Example 1:
“Stop that!”
/stops, but starts back up again in a minute/
“I told you to stop that!”
“I did. And then I started doing it again.”

Example 2:
“Desist from that activity!”
“Okay, I won’t do it again.”
/continues the current instance of the action/
posted by eviemath at 7:21 PM on September 27, 2023 [18 favorites]

I am not being reflexively prescriptivist: I admit that it might be discovered (ex post facto) to follow English grammar. But it just seems so...clumsy.

If native speakers are using it, by definition it follows English grammar. It might not follow the grammar of your variety of English, and it might be socially stigmatized (as are many non-standard constructions), but it is grammatical in the varieties of English where it is used.

The paper is not a "retro-justification" or an "ex post facto" discovery to establish its grammaticality; this would be a misunderstanding of the purpose of the paper (and linguistics as a whole). It's an attempt to give a theoretical explanation for why and how it's grammatical. Its grammaticality is simply not in question.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 7:23 PM on September 27, 2023 [16 favorites]

I think “null and void” is based on more technical uses of each of the individual terms in legal documents, with each adding something not captured by the other word in that specific technical context. Using both is a bit extraneous in non-legalese English, though, yeah.
posted by eviemath at 7:24 PM on September 27, 2023

isn’t a “whom, among that group” usage; it’s simply a clause further describing or identifying the specific one of the show’s main recurring characters being referred to.

I guess I've failed in my own language usage here, because that's what I thought I was saying: From among the group of recurring characters, this is the one we love to hate. Just using "whom" would create ambiguity as to whether we love to hate all of the recurring characters or just this one. (Whether "whom of which" actually works to reduce ambiguity probably depends whether the readers/listeners are familiar with the usage. It wouldn't have done much for me, whom of which had never heard of this structure before this thread.)
posted by Not A Thing at 7:28 PM on September 27, 2023

Its grammaticality is simply not in question.

Oh, but it is. At least by those of us in the figurative trenches.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:40 PM on September 27, 2023 [5 favorites]

Buffalo buffalo whom of which which of whom buffalo.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:42 PM on September 27, 2023 [14 favorites]

The legal doublets "cease and desist" and "null and void", along with many others ("assault and battery", "hue and cry", "will and testament") are a fascinating remnant of the interactions between Law French and English (or, in some cases, from Latin to the vernacular), deserving its own FPP. But they are most definitely not just extra verbosity; in many cases, they encode a linguistic record of the decline of the Roman Empire!

Derail over, back to the whomwich.
posted by graphweaver at 7:48 PM on September 27, 2023 [18 favorites]

1. It's the children who are wrong.
2. Of fucking course the source of this grammatical plague is the state of Connecticut, from which nothing good has ever sprung (present company included)
3. "Kanoe Evile", first among aforementioned incorrect children, shall hereafter be referred to exactly the same way I first read her name, which is to say, Evil Knievel.
posted by Mayor West at 7:52 PM on September 27, 2023 [9 favorites]

If “one of which” is ok, “whom of which” must be ok.
posted by Miko at 7:56 PM on September 27, 2023 [6 favorites]

"The expression is not random gibberish."

Correct, it's gibberish with rules.

Huh. At long last, the missing three-word definition of language. Gibberish with rules.

obligatory: MetaFilter: gibberish with rules.
posted by Mayor West at 7:56 PM on September 27, 2023 [21 favorites]

hassen on-reminds me of some arguments among friends around "i am not the man with whom to fuck" from alien resurrection (1997)
posted by glonous keming at 7:59 PM on September 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

> Our striker, whom of which is our best player, scores a lot of goals
> Our striker, who is our best player, scores a lot of goals

> Our striker, our best player, scores a lot of goals
> Our striker is our best player and scores a lot of goals

Proposal: Who is a completely unnecessary word in the English language and should be completely eliminated.

One a more serious note: Language includes a lot of redundancy. This is a feature, not a bug. The mere fact that you can pare down the word count some is not necessarily a virtue.
posted by flug at 8:08 PM on September 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

Oh, but it is. At least by those of us in the figurative trenches.

Perhaps I should have been more specific: It is not questioned by those who study language scientifically.

Of course there are people who don't take a scientific perspective who would object that it's just "bad grammar." This is true of all sorts of non-standard usages, whether that's because it's new, unfamiliar, or it's associated with some sort of stigmatized group (often a combination of some of these). Language has so many social meanings attached to it - and so grants so much social status to those who consider themselves good users of it - that it is very hard to get people to look at it scientifically.

But given how much harm the belief in "bad grammar" justifies, I think it's really worth trying.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 8:26 PM on September 27, 2023 [4 favorites]

Brevity is wit
- Probably someone from the Algonquin Round Table
posted by chromecow at 8:29 PM on September 27, 2023

Whomongst us hastn't been known to whom a whatnow from time to time?
posted by phooky at 8:34 PM on September 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

I have longed for the rise of "somesuch". But this "whom which" I do like more than this "which's who" perversion.
posted by MonsieurPEB at 9:06 PM on September 27, 2023

"Well, that's what I'm trying to tell you, Costello. Whom of which is playing which position is the point. Whom is on first, Which is on second, and I Don't Know is on third."
posted by credulous at 9:16 PM on September 27, 2023 [10 favorites]

This is true of all sorts of non-standard usages, whether that's because it's new, unfamiliar, or it's associated with some sort of stigmatized group (often a combination of some of these)

You left out "confusing," which literally pains me.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:24 PM on September 27, 2023 [4 favorites]

I'll throw out my theories - because what, if not exactly that, are we doing here?

#1. Emphasizing the selection from a larger group

Miko: > If “one of which” is ok, “whom of which” must be ok.

Related to this, they mention in the paper (footnote 1, page 2) that it's quite possible - if somewhat unusual - to have double antecedents. So whom has one antecedent and which has a different one.

A lot of these examples strike me this way. Sometimes the antecedent of "which" is implied, rather than specifically mentioned. But it seems to usually be some larger group out of which the particular "whom" is being selected.

For example:

• The snowmen whom of which the children loved went on a vacation to Hawaii.

I would interpret this to mean:

• Out of all the snowmen there are, it is the ones the children loved who went on vacation to Hawaii.

In this sense, the phrase does serve the purpose of emphasizing the act of selecting a specific group from a larger universe of possibilities. It brings into the construction both the snowmen the children love and also the others - a presumably much larger group - that the children don't love, and who were left behind.

If you omit the phrase altogether, this larger group of things, from which the preferred group is selected, is not brought to mind at all:

• The snowmen the children loved went on vacation to Hawaii.

In that sense perhaps it does have some semantic meaning - and emphasizes the act of selecting or highlighting these particular exemplars out of a larger universe.

#2. Linguistic Hypercorrection

However, my more favorite - and definitely snarkier - explanation tends more towards the idea of linguistic hypercorrection.

The idea is two-fold:

- Students/children are taught never to use which or that to refer to people. Which and that are supposed to refer to non-humans only.

- Similarly, students/children are taught, "Never end a sentence with a preposition!"

So every native speaker does both of these things roughly one thousand times every day and saying them "correctly" usually sounds awkward as hell. But still, people will try to more or less do it, or at least sort of insert a little workaround so as to avoid the offending constructions.

When they add the whom to which it smooths over the "never use which" problem. And "of which" after whom includes a preposition - which tends to make the whom sound better, kind of smooths over the issue of whether who or whom is correct gramatically, and solves the problem of whether or not to relocate the final proposition to this point in the sentence.

(You can't - because of which has already overloaded this part of the sentence with prepositional phrases.)

So in your head:

• Dave, Carter, Stefan, LeRoi, Boyd, and Tim are special people which make special music together.

Wait a minute - that sounds all wrong! According to my 7th grade English teacher, you can't say which! Well, I'll just throw whom in there - that's always correct sounding:

• Dave, Carter, Stefan, LeRoi, Boyd, and Tim are special people whom make special music together.

Wait, that is weird sounding, too!! Now what should I do? Wait, I'll just put them both in with a little of to connect them:

• Dave, Carter, Stefan, LeRoi, Boyd, and Tim are special people whom of which make special music together.

See, with that proposition of in there, now the whom makes perfect sense! You know, "of whom" is always correct!

So, problem solved!!11!!!

Or the dangling preposition problem:

• Give my regards to Tiff Macklem of the Bank of Canada as well who I also am extremely displeased with

Wait, help! I'm not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition! Well, I'll fix it up:

• Give my regards to Tiff Macklem of the Bank of Canada as well whom I also am extremely displeased with

Wait, that still sounds so weird. "Whom" - gaack! I know - my teacher said to do it this way:

• Give my regards to Tiff Macklem of the Bank of Canada as well, with whom I also am extremely displeased.

Aaack! Pffftt!!!! No human has ever allowed such un-natural phrases to pass their lips. Ok, here is the real way to say it

• Give my regards to Tiff Macklem of the Bank of Canada as well whom which I also am extremely displeased with.

See, which is kind of like a preposition, but better sounding because it often takes that exact place in a sentence. But I also have my whom in place just like Mrs. Snodgrass told me! And with is right where it belongs, at the very end of the sentence! All is right with the world!!!11!!!!

This also explains why it is whom instead of who that is most commonly used: People have been corrected so many times from who to whom in this type of construction, that they have internalized whom as the correct form. Thus, hypercorrection.

But whom still sounds wrong to them - and adding the which or of which fixes that problem for their internal ear.
posted by flug at 9:27 PM on September 27, 2023 [10 favorites]

Whom of Witch Halloween costume ideas anyone?
posted by interogative mood at 9:38 PM on September 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

The paper suggests either "with whom which I also am extremely displeased" or "whom with which I also am extremely displeased" would be used. There are many different variations available here and the MIT article does not detail them at all, only the paper does.
posted by one for the books at 9:47 PM on September 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

This was a first for me. One of the people mentioned in the article was someone I went to high school with and I've never had the experience of seeing a name I recognize in a news article that wasn't followed with a phrase like "seen in this photo with an unknown accomplice".
posted by Dr. Twist at 9:53 PM on September 27, 2023 [12 favorites]

The legal doublets "cease and desist" and "null and void", along with many others ("assault and battery", "hue and cry", "will and testament") are a fascinating remnant of the interactions between Law French and English

But I think that's exactly the reason for "whom of which"! It has the rhythm of one of these legal doublets and uses confusing juxtapositions of prepositions (e.g. heretofore, moreover, thereof) that are signifiers of formality and the gravitas of law. That's why people are using "whom of which" where simply "who" would suffice.
posted by Jon_Evil at 10:12 PM on September 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

(Goddamn, I turned old, didn't I? Like, right in this very thread?)
Well, I was old before I came here. Predictably, I don't like this 'whom of which' nonsense one little bit (nor does Grammarly, prompting me to 'correct pronoun usage' in response). I don't put that much stock in Grammarly or anything else, but 'whom of which' sounds clumsy and excessively wordy to me. I wouldn't be surprised if it originated from someone confused about whether to use 'whom' or 'who' and, like so many parts of English, it may well grow to become normal usage as more people find it resolves that issue for them. I hope not, but I've seen much stranger things in my years, so whom knows?
posted by dg at 11:31 PM on September 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

From TFA:

But it is not, as online searches show, a regional phenomenon. “It’s spontaneously popping up around the world,” Evile says. “I’m from Hawai’i and people I know in Hawai’i use it, but my only friend at MIT who would accept the phrase was from Chicago.”

"Around the world" being in two different US states? That's hardly evidence for a global English language phenomenon.



Wait a minute - that sounds all wrong! According to my 7th grade English teacher, you can't say which! Well, I'll just throw whom in there - that's always correct sounding:

Wait what? Why throw "whom" in there at all? "Who" works perfectly, and without making you sound like a pretentious knob: Dave, Carter, Stefan, LeRoi, Boyd, and Tim are special people who make special music together.

This whole thing grates on my ear and soul even more than "should of".
posted by Dysk at 11:39 PM on September 27, 2023 [6 favorites]

"should of".
*Twitches uncontrollably*
posted by dg at 11:55 PM on September 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

Holmes: I deduce that the criminal also murdered a professor of a leading European University.
Watson: whom of which?
posted by Phanx at 12:58 AM on September 28, 2023 [10 favorites]

Well that's a whole nother problem.
posted by bitslayer at 3:18 AM on September 28, 2023

I’ve never heard this before anywhere and it double-plus makes me twitchy. But the article is great - I love this stuff. People gonna talk. From the examples, it definitely sounds to me like speakers trying to talk fancy.

Whom of Witch Halloween costume ideas anyone?

Sexy Whom of Witch Halloween costume ideas or GTFO.
posted by Mchelly at 4:15 AM on September 28, 2023 [12 favorites]

I'm picturing a mashup of the Wicked Witch and Glinda something like the composite Superman.
posted by rochrobbb at 4:33 AM on September 28, 2023

"Well, that's what I'm trying to tell you, Costello. Whom of which is playing which position is the point. Whom is on first, Which is on second, and I Don't Know is on third."

Whom of Which is on second!

(the ghost runner for when a baseball game goes into extra innings)
posted by chavenet at 4:40 AM on September 28, 2023 [4 favorites]

Hello?
Is myself it whom of which are looking you looking for are?
posted by Foosnark at 4:52 AM on September 28, 2023 [9 favorites]

it does sound like a croatian-american baseball player. with long hair. "Whomofvich rounds second. the young player from Cutoff has one of the highest at bats in the league"
posted by eustatic at 4:53 AM on September 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

Whichcraft.
posted by swr at 4:55 AM on September 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

My point about doubled legalese words wasn't that they were somehow "wrong", but rather that to me whom of which doesn't sound any stranger than null and void, and I would have zero issues with hearing or using it.
posted by signal at 5:01 AM on September 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

The construction might be too new to get users to happily make grammaticality judgements, but re: the group-selection hypothesis, I'd be that people who use "whom of which" would reject sentences like

"My mom, whom of which went to Hawaii..."

while tolerating

"My family, whom of which went to Hawaii..." ("My whole damn family went to Hawaii, and they...")

and

"Half of my family, whom of which went to Hawaii..." ("The half of my family that went to Hawaii are the ones who...")
posted by heyforfour at 5:07 AM on September 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

Good news for everyone whowhom of which was mourning English's impending loss of whom, I guess?
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 5:20 AM on September 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

all my Tolkien of course

Gil-galad was an Elven-king,
whom of which the harpers sadly sing...
posted by puffyn at 5:20 AM on September 28, 2023 [6 favorites]

We don't have a word in English like the French dont.

(And to anyone who says we do: we also don't have a word in English like the German doch.)
posted by Cardinal Fang at 5:42 AM on September 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

I've either never heard this before or just never noticed it. But reading the example sentences, I don't think I'd be at all confused if someone used it in a sentence sometime. For me, it would be non-standard, but not difficult to parse.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:43 AM on September 28, 2023

“It’s spontaneously popping up around the world,” Evile says. “I’m from Hawai’i and people I know in Hawai’i use it (...)”

In which case, the first thing Evile should be doing is learning how to spell Hawaiʻi.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 5:47 AM on September 28, 2023

This reminds me a little of the academic-speak phrase "the ways in which," as in "I will look at the ways in which X happens." In 90% of the uses, it could easily be replaced by "how." Drives me nuts.
posted by goatdog at 5:50 AM on September 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

In which case, the first thing Evile should be doing is learning how to spell Hawaiʻi.

I don't think we can or should blame Evile for what is likely a copyediting failure on the part of MIT News.
posted by jedicus at 6:01 AM on September 28, 2023 [10 favorites]

Whom of which did Horton hear?
posted by Captaintripps at 6:24 AM on September 28, 2023 [5 favorites]

"Whomst soever of which" is the preferred construction.
posted by slogger at 6:45 AM on September 28, 2023 [4 favorites]

If analysis of this phenomenon develops into a significant area of research in linguistics, I hope it becomes known as The Problem of Evile.
posted by jedicus at 7:28 AM on September 28, 2023 [7 favorites]

I think “null and void” is based on more technical uses of each of the individual terms in legal documents, with each adding something not captured by the other word in that specific technical context. Using both is a bit extraneous in non-legalese English, though, yeah.

Null = never valid
Void = invalidated by circumstances.

So Null and Void is a weird usage as the meanings are logically inconsistent but ultimately the inconsistency does not matter in effect.
posted by srboisvert at 7:37 AM on September 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

is it legal to bait the Wordies this way?

one of my favorite things in MeFi is when someone posts something for the Wordies
posted by elkevelvet at 7:52 AM on September 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

David Pesetsky was one of my thesis advisors. He takes a palpable delight in picking apart these speech acts and trying to determine what makes them tick. I'm absolutely thrilled for him that a student brought a new emergent species to one of his lectures. Linguistic drift happens constantly, but never before has it been so thoroughly recorded.
posted by panglos at 8:25 AM on September 28, 2023 [6 favorites]

This is it. This is the moment I become the curmudgeon I was always meant to be.
posted by Gerald Bostock at 10:01 AM on September 28, 2023 [4 favorites]

"Welcome to how language works"

Welcome to how language degrades.
posted by 3.2.3 at 10:43 AM on September 28, 2023

It isn't surprising that many people hold incredibly reactionary views based on whatever snapshot of prestige language they were exposed to in their youth, but I do find it sad.

"Changes that happened before I was born are all part of the natural and correct order of things, as were changes I participated in; changes that come too late for me to identify with are degradations and signs of linguistic decay or educational/intellectual shortcomings" is a pernicious and inaccurate way of thinking about living language. The only languages that aren't in flux are ones that no one speaks any more.
posted by Earthtopus at 11:09 AM on September 28, 2023 [10 favorites]

I think it is not unusual to find set phrases, made up of function words, which don't make obvious sense if analyzed into their constituent parts, but are well-established and thus unremarkable. "As to" comes to mind (as in "As to how this locution came into the English language, I don't have a clue, though apparently it happened seven centuries ago"). But it's interesting and a little unnerving to watch the birth of one of these phrases, knowing that the people who ushered it in are my contemporaries -- that they heard more or less the same English as I did growing up, yet decided that this innovation makes sense, while I can't make head or tail of it.
posted by aws17576 at 11:48 AM on September 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

I speak New Zealand English, and I can understand but apparently not speak UK, Canadian, and USA English. I also have trouble processing audio into words with meaning, and absolutely no trouble processing writing into words with meaning. That said, if I heard this construction spoken by a person, I'd assume they had stuttered. If I saw it written down, I'd assume the writer had stuttered while writing/typing.
I just can't parse what it's supposed to mean or the function it serves.
An example from the paper: "Aegon the Conqueror was based on William the Conqueror, whom of which was a bastard." Remove "m of which" and this sentence makes sense to me. Leave it in and I can kind of understand what they're getting at, but I'd be concerned that either I or the writer had missed something and would probably seek clarification. I note that for the 'whom of which' construction, the authors provide seven examples, of which two are in a format likely to have been even slightly proofread.
Another example from the paper: "Our board is largely comprised of intelligent, driven women whom which we are lucky to work with!" Again, remove "whom" and I can parse it but it sounds like you aren't sure how the word which works; remove "which" and it sounds tortured but better. (Where I live, the normal way of phrasing this would be "who we are lucky to work with" and the oh I'd better be grammatically correct way would be "with whom we are lucky to work". Either would be broadly comprehensible.)
Like, if this is a construction that's being used then clearly it's part of the grammar of the groups using it, but it hasn't (yet?) migrated to become common in any of the kinds of English I'm familiar with.
posted by ngaiotonga at 12:16 PM on September 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

I am still trying to figure out how to reconcile "if someone speaks that way then it's correct" with "stop saying they're wrong just because you don't speak that way."
posted by wenestvedt at 12:21 PM on September 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

What I am interested in is whether there is any distinction made between 'whom of which' and 'who'/'whom'/'which'. The article doesn't approach that at all, beyond repeatedly insisting that there are rules for the deployment of 'whom of which' (while never articulating any of those rules). The paper seems to prefer a purely syntactic explanation, but I am not knowledgeable enough of syntax to understand what it is saying. I would be interested to see examples of where 'whom of which' cannot be used, but 'who'/'whom' can, or vice versa. Or generally, how would you teach someone who doesn't use 'whom of which' to use it correctly?
posted by eruonna at 12:26 PM on September 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

It isn't surprising that many people hold incredibly reactionary views based on whatever snapshot of prestige language they were exposed to in their youth, but I do find it sad.

It's entirely possible to see some changes in the language as really neat (habitual be, y'all) while others like this one seem ugly and pointless.

It will spread and become standard, or not. I hope it doesn't. From the outside, it doesn't seem to help people express themselves or relieve any real ambiguity. If it does, *shrug*, okay.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 12:27 PM on September 28, 2023 [4 favorites]

Wow, a rare opportunity to share a youtube classic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoCcDi8zH8M
posted by cron at 12:29 PM on September 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

It isn't surprising that many people hold incredibly reactionary views based on whatever snapshot of prestige language they were exposed to in their youth, but I do find it sad.

I find it sad but also interesting because of its irony.

We're not surprised when someone someone makes a religious argument against evolution; it simply doesn't matter that it is foundational for a scientific understanding of life on earth, because that's not what they're interested in. They're not interested in science, and they're not interested in education. It's not where they're coming from.

Yet when it comes to reactionary views about language (e.g. new usages you don't like are "degradation"), a large part of it is about protecting language as a shibboleth - about retaining an important marker of membership in the so-called educated classes. You hear arguments all the time about how people who use language differently are just ignorant, uneducated, and speak poorly because they just weren't taught any better.

The irony is that this is the real position of ignorance and so many flat-out reject becoming educated on the subject because it challenges deeply held views. It lays bare how much we actually believe in "science" or "learning" depends on how much it challenges us.

I am not exempt from this, probably, but it is especially salient to me w.r.t. people's peeves about language use due to my own education (linguistics) and experiences on forums like this one. The *only* places you do not get reactionary, anti-scientific views are in places where linguists are in the majority or where there is strict content moderation that removes it.

Today I think I am feeling a little more dispirited than normal, but I am heartened by the number of comments here that are not reactionary. I think things are getting better over time. Gradually.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 12:33 PM on September 28, 2023 [7 favorites]

I am still trying to figure out how to reconcile "if someone speaks that way then it's correct" with "stop saying they're wrong just because you don't speak that way."

There is no reconciliation needed. There is no one single, objective set of rules. Their language is grammatically correct, and so is yours.

Or are you confusing the form of what someone says (i.e. its grammar) with the content? "All language varieties are equally grammatically valid" is a very different statement than "everything anyone says is true."
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 12:35 PM on September 28, 2023 [4 favorites]

"say whom of which again! SAY WHOM OF WHICH AGAIN! i dare ya! i double dare you, emm effer!"
posted by gorbichov at 12:41 PM on September 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

Ugly and ungrammatical to my eyes/ears, because "who" is subject, and "whom" is object. This construction is using "whom" to refer to the subject of the sentence, which is contrary to standard usage.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 12:52 PM on September 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

It's like watching a smoking new island appear from a volcano in the ocean. New language parts!
posted by mdoar at 1:07 PM on September 28, 2023 [3 favorites]

I am a professional linguist, and most of my students are black and/or non-native speakers of English, and there are few joys more great for me than when they (whom of which are all well aware that I'm a giant nerd for these things *and* nonjudgmental about people speaking nonstandard English) come in with new usages. They'll come in, often with rap songs, and say "look what they're doing, here", and then I pass it on to a linguistic nerd server I'm on. I love it because it's delightful, and my students love it because I am the very whitest of white men, culturally as well as genetically, but I take their language seriously instead of brushing it off as "dialect" or some of the even worse things some white folks will call it. They teach me tons of other things, too, like "Dr. Hobnail, please do not use periods at the end of sentences when you give us feedback on assignments": to Gen Zers, the period implies an angry or rebuking tone. Descriptivism for the win!
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 1:15 PM on September 28, 2023 [11 favorites]

Proposal: Who is a completely unnecessary word in the English language and should be completely eliminated.

Who's going to agree to that??
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:58 PM on September 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

there are few joys more great for me than when they (whom of which are all well aware that I'm a giant nerd for these things *and* nonjudgmental about people speaking nonstandard English) come in with new usages.

outgrown_hobnail it seems like you are someone who can both understand what this construction means and how it's used, and explain it to baffled people - I am very baffled. I'm not saying it's wrong or bad, because I'm very much not qualified to make that kind of call and the people who are so qualified generally don't anyway; I just don't get it.

For example, does
"My students, who are all well aware that I'm a giant nerd, are learning"
mean the same as
"My students, whom of which are all well aware that I'm a giant nerd, are learning"
and if not, what does the latter mean?
posted by ngaiotonga at 2:59 PM on September 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

I just can't parse what it's supposed to mean or the function it serves.

From reading the article, it doesn't seem like it semantically differs much, if at all, from bare "who" or "whom". Be wary of a popular implicit belief about syntax: that words need to serve a function. They don't. "Unnecessary but required" accurately describes a surprising amount of English syntax (and indeed syntax in every human language). Consider, for example, the utterly unremarkable phrase "don't do it". Why do we not simply say "do it not"?
posted by lefty lucky cat at 3:42 PM on September 28, 2023 [3 favorites]

Strong Nope.

also: flagged for both deletion and the sidebar.

(I speak and write and think in c.21 British English. 'Whom' is a word I'd happily see sunk under linguistic drift, along with the idea that you don't end sentences prepositions with.)
posted by k3ninho at 3:58 PM on September 28, 2023

The paper that the FPP article is reporting about has a great line about the emotional backlash involved for some:

"There is of course no better sign that a syntactic construction forms part of the real grammar of real speakers than prescriptivists protesting against its use."
posted by Earthtopus at 4:26 PM on September 28, 2023 [5 favorites]

Why do we not simply say "do it not"?

Some of us that way do say it and strong with the force we are.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:31 PM on September 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

I feel like this is either adding a word or missing a word or getting scrambled in the description somehow.

"My students, whom of which all are well aware..." sounds perfectly cromulent to me, but "my students whom of which are all well aware..." sounds like gibberish because the "are" is in the wrong place. If you say whom of which, I want to immediately know which whoms of which??

In the article, "whom of which" generally seems to be referring to an individual or group within a larger category, though the larger category is often somewhat elided or missing (maybe it was in a previous sentence?)
posted by surlyben at 4:51 PM on September 28, 2023

The very idea that language can "degrade", (besides it's implicit classism, fear of the other, etc.,) is based on this odd idea that language was somehow created at some specific point in the past in some sort of state of grace or "quality" (whom the whatever that might mean) and an effort is necessary to maintain this original state against all the evil people (who are unlike me) who are harming it.
None of this is based on what languages are actually like in any way whatsowhomever.
posted by signal at 6:37 PM on September 28, 2023 [5 favorites]

Languagehat shared this on his blog and it's led to some interesting discussion among the commenters there, whom some of which are linguists.

As far as degradation of language goes, I always think of this bit from Hugh Kenner:

In the origins of every language, we may discern a horribly mangled way of speaking some previous one. French began as the saloon Latin of an empire’s frontier.

In a transalpine Texas where grammarians did not venture, vulgar folk (Lat. vulgus, the no-accounts) lost the habit of calling what might get sliced from your shoulders your caput, testa being more playful and playfulness in isolated places being habit-forming. Testa meant "pot" and was slang for "head," like our "noggin," which also means "pot." It got mispronounced teste, and the French still say tête.

The French also say cheval, and we say "chivalry," because legionaries who had gone native in Gaul were less apt to be familiar with a prancing equus than with the kind of nag you’d call by the local slang word, caballus. So la tête d’un cheval, a horse’s head, was formerly a nag’s noggin, and if roustabouts who talked like that thought they were talking Latin there were seemingly no [pedants] to disabuse them.

posted by Gerald Bostock at 8:21 PM on September 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

”Whomst soever of which" is the preferred construction.

and

I think it is not unusual to find set phrases, made up of function words, which don't make obvious sense if analyzed into their constituent parts, but are well-established and thus unremarkable.

The thing for me is that I can think of a selection context in which the phrase would make sense when analyzed into its constituent parts, but that is not how it is used in the examples given (where, as near as I can tell, it just seems to replace “who”). I second ngaiotonga: more explanation for those of us at the only amateur linguist level would be interesting and helpful.
posted by eviemath at 8:48 PM on September 28, 2023

(That is, “whom of which” as a shortened version of “whomsoever of which” is what I would have assumed the phrase meant, but it’s not used in that way.)
posted by eviemath at 8:58 PM on September 28, 2023

Languages don't "degrade" but new developments can break existing consistent grammatical conventions, making the language more complicated. This is it course, uh, not a concern with English.
posted by Dysk at 12:17 AM on September 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

English usually doesn't inflect, but "whom" is the accusative case of "who." Receives actions, takes prepositions, etc. I think I read that was a class marker in the 19th century when early prescriptivists were trying to make English follow Latin-ish rules and conventions. "Whom" sounds affected and ridiculous to me when used in the nominative case, as a subject.

Knock knock.
- Who's there?
To.
- To who?
To whom.
posted by vitia at 4:27 AM on September 29, 2023 [2 favorites]

Yeah, I think that’s the other part of what makes the new phrase sound a bit distressing to me. I like ‘whom’ when used “correctly” (based on rules I’ve internalized), but not so much when used pretentiously.
posted by eviemath at 4:48 AM on September 29, 2023

Mods, please delete this thread due to obsolescence; the kids are now saying whomch.
posted by mittens at 5:48 AM on September 29, 2023 [5 favorites]

Languages don't "degrade" but new developments can break existing consistent grammatical conventions, making the language more complicated.

That implies a mere handful of changes takes the language above some level of complexity that causes native speakers begin to struggle, and English (just like any other language) has A LOT of headroom there. I'm not even sure I'd be willing to say that Rubicon exists.

So it's just not, to me, a good argument in favor of linguistic conservatism... reframe the argument: the real strength of human language is not maximal adherence to any singular instance of it, but the ability to discern a signal from an incredible amount of noise (literal noise, varying dialects, slang, the inherent ambiguity of complex sentences, change over time, etc). Surely that is something we need to exercise in order to keep our minds and tongues in shape, with a lifelong fitness program of exposing ourselves to and learning to use novel language features?
posted by lefty lucky cat at 9:02 AM on September 29, 2023

A whom with a view
posted by aspersioncast at 10:26 AM on September 29, 2023 [2 favorites]

If I encountered this in a student paper I was assume, as I often do with the phrase "the ways in which," that someone is trying to sound smart by adding a couple words signalling intellectual nuance where none is present or required.
posted by aspersioncast at 10:29 AM on September 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

That implies a mere handful of changes takes the language above some level of complexity that causes native speakers begin to struggle, and English (just like any other language) has A LOT of headroom there.

So it's just not, to me, a good argument in favor of linguistic conservatism...

You'll note that the rest of my comment makes it clear that it is not an argument for that, certainly as far as English is concerned. If English was ever bound by rules, the exceptions have long since come to outnumber them. There is no logical consistency in English to preserve.
posted by Dysk at 10:30 AM on September 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

English, like all spoken or signed languages, has grammar.
posted by signal at 10:58 AM on September 29, 2023 [2 favorites]

Languages don't "degrade" but new developments can break existing consistent grammatical conventions, making the language more complicated.

Sure, if you can come up with a reasonable definition of "complicated," which is far from trivial. There is no whole language measure of complexity accepted by linguists; there are only specific definitions or measures of complexity that can be applied in specific domains.

If English was ever bound by rules, the exceptions have long since come to outnumber them. There is no logical consistency in English to preserve.

No language is "bound" by rules in the sense that the rules can change, but all languages, including English, have grammatical rules. English is "bound" by rules in that sense, just like any other language. That's why we can communicate right now; we're using (mostly) the same set of rules.

There's a persistent myth that English is somehow exception, but it's not, at least in terms of its grammar. It's not exceptional in its logic or illogic, in its regularity or irregularity, in its complexity or its simplicity, in its rigidity or flexibility, etc. English is really only exceptional in terms of its global reach.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 12:45 PM on September 29, 2023 [4 favorites]

I speak a good handful of languages to various degrees. I may not be a linguist, but there is certainly a good degree of variance in how consistent and straightforward the rules of various languages are. English is not unique, but it is also way toward the "not consistent and simple" end of the scale. I'm not suggesting that English has no grammar - just that the grammar can not be expressed simply, because it isn't simple. You can't even make statements about how to pluralise without needing to provide half a dictionary of exceptions, something which is not true of e.g. Norwegian to at all the same extent.
posted by Dysk at 1:15 AM on September 30, 2023

>>Wait a minute - that sounds all wrong! According to my 7th grade English teacher, you can't say which! Well, I'll just throw whom in there - that's always correct sounding:

>Wait what? Why throw "whom" in there at all? "Who" works perfectly, and without making you sound like a pretentious knob:

Umm, the whole point of hypercorrection is, this is the same type of person who has taught themselves to say, "between you and I."

They've internalized Ms. Jones, their 7th Grade English teacher, who drilled "You and I are eating lunch together" - never say "You and me . . . "

Ms, Jones - presumably - knows the rest of the context for when to say "you and I" and when not. But that's lost on our 7th grader - they just have a new pattern, "You and I," that is now labelled as correct . They memorize it and use it.

Similarly, corrections come when the student writes "who" when, according to English teachers, it should be "whom". They never receive the correction in the other direction because "whom" isn't in the normal vocabulary of any normal 7th grader. So pretty soon they just internalize "ok, always use whom. Never use who. Whom, whom, whom it is."

This isn't actually correct - that's why they call it hypercorrection. And yeah, the stereotype of a habitual hypercorrector is someone who is trying to talk like kind of a pretentious knob - though like all stereotypes it is a pretty ungenerous one. As linguists are quick to point out, this kind of thing is actually a very common pattern of speech. It likely is more common among people who are more educated or are trying to speak in a more educated or "correct" tone.

Others might well interpret hypercorrection as sounding pretentious - and a number of people in this very thread have made that exact point about "whom of which" - but it would be rare for sounding pretentious to be the actual goal of the person using the hypercorrected elements. More likely they are just applying patterns of speech they have internalized from elsewhere in order to express whatever they are trying to say at the moment - and perhaps shooting for something of an elevated or educated tone.
posted by flug at 5:02 AM on September 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

By the way, part of the point I'm making:

- Our striker, whom is our best player . . .

Whom in that sentence strikes most of us as quite wrong. It should be who - you can work out why. But regardless of that, whom sounds wrong in that sentence.

However:

- Our striker, whom of which is our best player . . .

For me, as soon as that of which goes in there, the incorrectness of whom is gone. (It's replaced by a feeling that of which is incorrect or, at least, out of place - but that's somewhat beside the point.)

In fact, if one were to say who of which instead - now the who actually feels wrong. Somehow, in that position, it must be whom.

I can't exactly explain why, but my wager is, the people who use "whom of which" feel the same. Once they have put the whom in place (hypercorrection?) adding the of which helps to justify their usage of whom instead of who.

Possibly related, as Baethen and eviemath point out, whomever of which and whomsoever of which are both perfectly sensible phrases - though neither quite means the same thing as whom of which.

But the existence of those two phrases likely helps whom of which sound like a correct phrase, whereas who of which just plain sounds wrong.

Finally, everyone has been yelping about how whom of which is just a bunch of unnecessary and redundant verbiage.

But the meaning in this particular example is quite clear:

- Our striker, who out of all the players on our team is the best, scores a lot of goals.

Putting it in those terms makes the whom of which version seem downright concise and even elegant:

- Our striker, whom of which is our best player, scores a lot of goals.
posted by flug at 5:31 AM on September 30, 2023 [5 favorites]

perhaps shooting for something of an elevated or educated tone

Aka… sounding pretentious.
posted by eviemath at 7:29 AM on September 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

But your other comments about hypercorrection, and that it can often come from a place of uncertainty, past educational negative experiences, etc. are well-taken; thanks for that reminder and addition to the discussion.
posted by eviemath at 7:31 AM on September 30, 2023

> Aka… sounding pretentious.

I warned you it was the snarky take!

But on the more generous side: Trying to strike a more elevated register, yet failing in a variety of ways, is pretty much what every person with any degree of education does continually when in that mode. At the extreme end: Nothing in the world quite matches academic-speak - or even worse, academic writing - for pure density of mindlessly repeated, unnecessary, completely opaque, and definitely pretentious cliches. But the principles of how we make language apply to educated people and academics, same as they do to everyone else. Sometimes the end result is a bit ugly, no question. But it's usually more productive to think of it as the natural result of how humans make language rather than belittling it as simply pretentious or dumb.

BTW I will recommend Trong Engen's several posts in the Languagehat thread (1, 2, 3) as taking the same general approach I was trying to above, except as explained by someone who actually knows what they're talking about.
posted by flug at 4:23 PM on September 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

For 30+ years in the US, kids have been learning to read with methods from the wildly popular yet apparently controversial "whole language" approach. Phonics and grammar are extremely not important, from what I remember.

Just pick up everything from context is the general idea, I think. Lots of reading silently.

I wouldn't be surprised to find that a ton of people will simply never think about whether or not "whom of which" is valid. I don't remember being encouraged to pay much attention to unfamiliar words or sentence constructions, just to pull the meaning from context and thus assimilate the new thing.
posted by Baethan at 4:57 PM on September 30, 2023

I don't think we can or should blame Evile for what is likely a copyediting failure on the part of MIT News.

The whole article is literally about linguistic pedantry.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 12:49 PM on October 12, 2023

Its grammaticality is simply not in question.

Oh, but it is. At least by those of us in the figurative trenches.

All the same, we've got this. You will be cut into glittering coruscations by the wit of our imaginative crossfire.
Resistance is futile blah blah woof woof...
posted by y2karl at 1:14 PM on October 12, 2023