What is something that was explained to you wrong such that you could never understand it, and you received a clarifying explanation that finally made sense? (lemmy.world)

submitted 7 months ago by Krudler@lemmy.world to c/casualconversation@lemmy.world

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[-] intensely_human@lemm.ee 9 points 7 months ago

He : Who
Him : Whom

He gave me the ball. Who gave me the ball?

I gave the ball to him. To whom did I give the ball?

[-] Krudler@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

"Jeff and me went shopping"

"Jeff and I went shopping"

If you can take Jeff out and it sounds right then it's grammatically correct. For example you wouldn't say "me went shopping".

"That looks fake to Jeff and me"

"That looks fake to Jeff and I"

In that case you wouldn't say "that looks fake to I".

I never understood this until a technical writer I worked with made it so plain one day.

Edit: formatting

[-] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 3 points 7 months ago

Yeah but unless it's directly after a preposition you sound like a stuffy asshole. "Whom did I give the ball to?" Whom is falling out of usage in general and I won't be sad to see it go.

And in some cases it's difficult to line up the he/him, as in "Give this to whoever needs it." In that case the whoever is almost pulling double duty of being the object of the preposition while needing to function as the subject in the clause "[subject] needs it". But if you see the entire clause as the object of the preposition it works out with "whoever".