A letter comes to the Court of Peeves, Crotchets & Irks from Delbert O. Lawrence of Bellevue, Wash. He moves to abolish “whom” and its sibling, “whomever.”

Abolish them? The petitioner goes beyond a motion merely to abolish. He urges the court to extirpate “whom” and “whomever,” to cast them into outer darkness, to bury them with bell, book and candle. Anathema, he cries! Pronounce anathema!

The court will oblige: uh-NATH-uh-maw. The noun is rooted in the Greek for “another mother,” or mother-in-law.

Clearly, Mr. Lawrence is not alone in his castigations. The two pronouns have long been the object of disaffection. Tacitus, the Roman historian, never denounced them publicly, but in A.D. 96 and again in 104 he urged their banishment, tacitly.

The most recent indication of impending mortality emerged from a survey undertaken by professor Webster G. Merriam in 1994. The venerable pollster put this question to a random sample of 982 subjects: “Are the pronouns ‘whom’ and ‘whomever’ worth preserving?” Among respondents aged 80 to 102, a respectable 71.6 percent said, “Yes, sometimes, but we forget when.” The jury is still out.

In more recent times – no more fooling around – grammarian Richard Grant White observed in 1870 that “whom” was “visibly disappearing.” In “The American Language” (1936), H.L. Mencken echoed the prediction. He thought “whom” was “fast vanishing.” In 1980, critic Anthony Burgess reported that “whom” was “dying out in England.”

Returning to the petitioner Lawrence: In support of his motion he offers a sentence last month from The New York Times:

“In his choice of a running mate, John Kerry went with a political hottie whom he hopes will enliven his campaign.”

What to say? Mr. Lawrence is sure the Times’ reporter wanted “who he hopes” instead of “whom he hopes.” That sounds plausible, but why worry? The court would recast the sentence: “In search of a running mate to enliven his campaign, John Kerry went with a political hottie from North Carolina.” This is the court’s motto: When in doubt, duck!

As every publisher knows, writers have a chronic problem with “whom” and “whomever.” Business Week asks, “Who can you trust?” The New York Times wonders, “Who do you trust?” In Forbes magazine, an ad writer for IBM asks, “Who do you need?” Answer: That ad writer needed an editor. And all three questions needed an old-fashioned “whom.”

A contributor to the Times seeks a good way “to insulate whomever gets elected president from the influence of wealthy special interests.” A book reviewer praises Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s assessment of “those justices whom she believes helped most significantly to shape the court’s history.” Let us try “whoever gets elected” and “who she believes.”

Rhetorically we ask, should a legal notice be addressed “To Who It May Concern”? The ear rebels. In Psalm 27, David asks, “Whom shall I fear, of whom shall I be afraid?” Would the translation be improved by the nominative “who”? Shall we rewrite John Donne? “Never send to know for who the bell tolls”? Aaargh!

The Court of Peeves, Crotchets & Irks will deny the motion to abolish “whom” and “whomever.” The old fellows aren’t dead or dying. They’re only snoozing.

James Kilpatrick is a syndicated columnist.

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