Ad Hominem

A homophone is a word that sounds the same as another but is spelled differently and has the same meaning. Apparently, many people today don't realize the difference between homophones and thus use the wrong one incredibly often. There/their/they're are a common trio, and your/you're is often very often mistaken. The one that bugs me the most, however, isn't even a homophone pair.

If there is such a thing as slant homophones, it's then/than. They're not even pronounced the same way, and yet I see them misplaced far more often than should be possible. 'Then' implies sequence, 'than' implies comparison. The only difference may be the vowel, but it makes a world of difference. I could understand mixing them up when still learning how to spell simple words, but it's rather outrageous for adults to be switching them around. People don't mix up then and them, do they? They sound almost identical. Why should they be exempt?

It's a sad day for the English language when people fail to see even the significance of grammar. Improper grammar makes one look like a fool. Perhaps the person is very bright, but I would stop reading a textbook that made simple grammar mistakes due to discredit to its ethos. These things are not to say that proper grammar makes a person look intelligent. It's just one more way that people can form a negative bias against one another, and shouldn't be overlooked in proper communication.

It's also a rather sad day for the English language when I'm viewed as stuck up when I properly use whom when it is required. There are only three major cases in the English language. There's the subjective, which is the subject form of a noun, there's the possessive, which shows possession, and there's the objective case, in which a noun functions as the indirect or direct object in a sentence or the object of a preposition. That's it. Whom is objective. Why is that so difficult?

In part, the media is to blame for improper use of who instead of whom. The general consensus seems to be that 'whom' is dead and should never be used. Although language is meant to be fluid and alive, it's reprehensible to just throw out a rule for no other reason than laziness. Language is the lifeblood of culture. It is a filter through which we view reality, and thus should be used properly if we have any hope of properly communicating at least slightly more clearly.