Hi Alphas,<\/p>\n
Welcome to Alphaday 9; another writerly get-together of Alphas with the opportunity to discuss a wide range of topics that matter to us because we\u2019re writers.<\/p>\n
I suppose we all know that switched-off look in the eyes of our dear friends and relations if we get carried away about our latest magnum opus or ask them to read something we\u2019ve written. Not so when you\u2019re among Alphas, thank goodness. We\u2019ll lap up all your ponderings and add some more, and we\u2019ll eagerly peruse any writings you\u2019re willing to share with us.<\/p>\n
Our ever-helpful Alpha team have been busy preparing today\u2019s agenda with the idea of offering a stimulating mix of items that will appeal to our members. What might those items be? Well, our guess is that there\u2019s no escaping the three Rs: Reading, wRiting and wRiting. So that\u2019s roughly what\u2019s on today\u2019s menu, as follows:<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all there: your writing, feedback, a fresh writing challenge, news of your personal writing, discussion topic about your reading\u2026 what more could you possibly want? And if you have an answer to that question: fire off!<\/p>\n
Alpha news:<\/u><\/p>\n
We have an unusual membership situation right now. It\u2019s not unusual for us to have one or two new members biding their time before \u2018daring\u2019 to enter the fray with their input. What is <\/em>unusual about the present situation is that we have as many as six members hanging timidly back \u2013 resisting the temptation (or the urge) to come out and join in. So I\u2019m putting out a call for all you silent Alphas: please, let\u2019s hear from you; we could do with some fresh input from you newbies. The Log is the perfect place to tell us about your writing, but if you missed that, don\u2019t worry, just send out a group email with your Log addition. Enter challenge 9. There are plenty of other prompts and snippets waiting for you; it\u2019s up to you; don\u2019t wait for somebody else to go first!<\/p>\n General news:<\/u><\/p>\n World news is sad, bad and mad. I\u2019m seriously worried about lots of places like Syria, Holland (no catastrophe there, apparently. Phew!) and France.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a far more productive problem to tackle: is \u201cwhom\u201d still a word you use in your everyday conversations?<\/p>\n I found the following excellent little teaser:<\/p>\n Sample sentence; which is right?<\/p>\n Answer<\/u>: to whoever<\/strong> We wouldn\u2019t have to discuss any of this, if grammarians would just stop trying to make whom<\/em> happen. English word order almost always makes whether a noun is a subject or an object perfectly clear. Somehow, as a society, we all get on despite the fact that the word you<\/em> can be singular and plural, formal and informal, specific and general, subjective and objective. So to pretend that there is anything legitimately clarifying about distinguishing between a subjective interrogative pronoun (who<\/em>) and an objective one (whom<\/em>) is to completely ignore the reality of how English is spoken and written. All whom<\/em> does is make one half of English speakers anxious that they don\u2019t use it and the other half foolish whenever they say, And whom shall I say is calling?<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019ve given up \u2018whom\u2019; not just for Lent, but forever. What about you?<\/em><\/p>\n Finally: Art! I love that bronze statue they\u2019ve put up in Wall Street of the little girl facing the bull. Brilliant!<\/em><\/p>\n Christine<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hi Alphas, Welcome to Alphaday 9; another writerly get-together of Alphas with the opportunity to discuss a wide range of topics that matter to us because we\u2019re writers. I suppose we all…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alphaday-bulletins","tag-alphaday-bulletins-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}I\u2019ll just give this to whoever\/whomever<\/u> wants more. Angela?<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\nExplanation<\/u>: Yes, to<\/em> is a preposition that introduces an object. Yes, whomever<\/em> is the objective form. But the verb wants<\/em> needs a subject, which would be whoever<\/em> not whomever<\/em>. And in fact the object of the preposition to <\/em>is not just the word that immediately follows it but the entire noun phrase whoever wants more<\/em>. Does your head hurt yet?<\/p>\n