Dear Colin...

I believe this blog-debating is very practice for our next debate tournament. Accordingly, I cannot refrain from disagreeing with a portion of your most recent comment on "whom". True, it may not be really dead yet, and very true, it probably shouldn't be considered officially dead until English teachers stop correcting "to who". But Colin... dear, dear... what is this statement that "Heck, you'd never hear the word "impugn" on prime-time TV, but it was still the Dictonary.com Word of the Day in July 2003."? Of course you wouldn't hear "impugn" on prime-time television! I would be seriously worried I did hear it. I had no clue what the heck in meant until I looked it up in my Oxford (note italics here; Maxwell will concur) dictionary, where I found "impugn - v. to challenge or call into question". But that's not really important. The point is, one simply say "challenge" or "call into question" in about 99.999999999999% of cases where they could say "impugn". There would be nothing grammatically offensive about this substitution for the sake of brevity. The substitution of "who" for "whom" is technically considered grammatically improper unlike the substitution of more humane terminology for "impugn". So this is not just a matter of choosing big or little words. Oh no! "Whom" only has four letters you know, and you wouldn't considered an idiot for using it in a conversation 30 years ago. So there's my impugnation of your argument. I knew this would make a great discussion... now that "whom" is "a grammatical stunt". Colin you're brilliant.