Mea Culpa: the decline of ‘whom’ is not the end of civilisation

Grammar, style and usage in this week’s Independent

Wimbledon ball boys and girls (Colorsport/Andrew Cowie)

“Whom” is dying out, which reminds me of some stray dialogue from a long defunct cartoon strip called Pogo (1964-75, according to Wikipedia):

“Whom is going to do this dirty job, whom?”

“Youm, that’s whom.”

“Moum??”

We had a “whom” in a headline this week: “Meet Wimbledon’s unsung heroes, without whom this famous fortnight would not be possible.” I mention it not because there was anything wrong with it. On the contrary. I mention it because we do get complaints that The Independent has gone downmarket since it went digital-only, that it is full of youthspeak and clickbait headlines.

To which I say: chill. The world is changing, and so is the language. The Independent will change with it. Yes, we do have headlines that encourage people to click on them. In the old days they were called good headlines that encouraged readers to read the stories underneath them and to buy the newspaper. Some of those headlines might even slightly exaggerate the importance of the news they convey. Some of them may contain slang or idioms that appeal to young people. You have my word for it that these tendencies are not dangerous to civilisation as we know it.

The Independent has, and always has had, a range of voices, opinion and styles. If you are a linguist you might say that different articles are written in different registers. The article about Wimbledon ball boys and girls was written in a conservative style. “Whom” may be in decline, but it still makes good sense in this register. (“Without who” would have looked wrong to most people: the way the word is dying out is that, if the headline were rewritten in “clickbait casual” it would be something like: “It wouldn’t be possible without them: meet Wimbledon’s unsung heroes.”)

There was even another “whom” in the article itself, about the high standards demanded of the 252 young scamperers, “all of whom are put through their paces ahead of the Championships”.

Multiple complaints: Another way in which English is changing is the use of “multiple” instead of “several”. I don’t like it, which is just a preference, although I think we ought to be aware that there may be others like me among our readers. But sometimes it is just unnecessary. On Wednesday we carried the headline: “Multiple suicide bomb blasts in Nigeria kill 19 and leave 23 injured.” The plural form of blast was enough of a clue, I think, that there was more than one of them.

Excess syllabilisation: We used “utilised” or “utilising” four times this week. There is never any excuse for this. I once suggested that someone should write a computer program that automatically deleted the “tili” from this horrible word in its various forms, but sadly our computer people seem to think they have more important things to do with their time.