H. L. Mencken

“ Lounsbury’s defense of “it is me,” [7] as we shall see in the next chapter, has support in the history and natural movement of the language, and that movement is also against the preservation of the distinction between who and whom. The common speech plays hob with both the orthodox inflections, despite the protests of grammarians, and in the long run, no doubt, they will be forced to yield to its pressure, as they have always yielded in the past. ”

“ A shadowy line often separates what is currently coming into sound usage from what is still regarded as barbarous. No self-respecting American, I daresay, would defend ain’t as a substitute for isn’t, say in “he ain’t the man,” and yet ain’t is already tolerably respectable in the first person, where English countenances the even more clumsy aren’t. Aren’t has never got a foothold in the American first person ”

“ At all events, the Irish example must have reinforced it. In Ireland “Will I light the fire, ma’am?” is colloquially sound.↑ Often with such amusing results as “whom is your father?” and “whom spoke to me?” For these, alas, there is eminent authority. Cf. Matthew xvi, 13: “When Jesus came into the coasts of Cesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” ”

“ How much influence they exert, even indirectly, is shown by the American disdain of the English precision in the use of the indefinite pronoun, already noticed. I turn to the Saturday Evening Post, and in two minutes find: “one feels like an atom when he begins to review his own life and deeds.” [11] The error is very rare in English; the Fowlers, seeking examples of it, could get them only from the writings of a third-rate woman novelist, Scotch to boot. But it is so common in American that when Mr. ”