2 comments about calls to today's show.

First, "dysfluency" refers to any of a class of fluency disorders, of which stuttering is the best known.

Second, I caught only the last part of a discussion of whether or not to use "whom" in a sentence that ended in "...is who(m) we have seen." (I didn't hear what the subject noun phrase is.) The copula "is" relates the subject to the whole clause "who(m) we have seen." The pronoun "who(m)" is the object of "see." (What other word in the sentence would be the object of "see"?) Of course, as a descriptive linguist, I agree that it would be utterly pedantic to insist on putting the pronoun in the objective case.

Chuck Cairns
Professor Emeritus of Linguistics
CUNY

I prefer Strunk & White's rules for possesives. For example, 'girls night out,' but 'the Lopates's house.' Using the apostrophe after the S seems old-fashioned and silly to me.

holiday... holy day,
surely its as simple as that!

re: "who(m) we've seen" The relative pronoun takes its case (subjective, possessive, objective) from its use in the relative clause not from the main clause. Thus, who(m) is the object of the verb 've seen, not the subject and should be in the objective case (whom).

There's a new book out, The Etymologicon and it's being read aloud daily on Book of the Week at the BBC4
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qftk
Terrific!
Thanks Carolg

So, would "hobgoblin" be a "have goblin," sort of like the one-percent??

Re: Aran Islands. Usually pronounced AR-un Islands.

A female announcer for, iirc, a sponsor, talked about AhRAHN Islands and AhRAHN sweaters.

However, to the best of my knowledge, corroborated by checking sources on the web, the accent is on the first syllable.

Now, perhaps these aren't the islands in Galway Bay, but some other area of the world?

Please try to correct the reading of this sponsor's message. It's...embarrassing for the station.

I always understood the word "hobnob" to carry the connotation of partying or socializing with those who belong to a higher social stratum that the person doing the "hobnobbing"

Is it shrimp or shrimps?

Does the McGreevy family become the McGreevies [not McGreevys]?

What is the origin of Post Office? At the Postal Museum in Washington DC, they have an exhibit that highlights the Boston Post Road which is the road they used to deliver the mail between Boston and New York as the first "postal" route. The post mark the route and distances, is there a relationship between post and post office?

You cannot put a ' or " in a name on a computer (without changing the way that the some software works on a fundamental level, in others you can) because ' or " are used to designate a string type variable.

If your name is D'Ambrosia you will get an error if they enter your name as:

variable Name = 'D'Ambrosia'

The 2nd ' will cause Name to be 'D' and not 'D'Ambrosia'. ' and " are used interchangeably in most cases. This problem is easily fixed (generally by using a \ before the ' - so Name = 'D\'Ambrosia' would be valid) but it takes a retooling of a companies software which costs money and they honestly don't care enough to bother.

I've noticed that when speaking to someone from another country it is P.C. to attempt to pronounce their name according to their own language, but since my name is David, wouldn't that mean if I am speaking French I should be addressed as "David" and not "Dah-veed" as I was called in French class?

I hear people say all the time they go 'to university'. Isn't it going to 'the' university?

This is not really a euphemism, but yesterday my daughter and I were considering whether there is a term, or at least other examples, of the following: the word "sporadically" is used, well, sporadically. Is there a term for a word that describes or defines its own usage? It seems a kind of onomotopaiea of meaning.

2nd question: hasn't Hoi Poloi reversed its meaning over time?

What about pluralizing a last name like Higgins or Collins?

Could you confirm that it is a misuse to use "jive" in place of "jibe" when meaning, "to be in accord with."

Hi, can you elaborate on how the word "Christmas" emerged from the word, "Yule" in the 12th Century? Thanks.

PLEASE ASK PAT ,TOWARDS THE END OF A CHRISTMAS CAROL MRS. DILBER SAYS TO SCROOGE "BOBS YOUR UNCLE" AFTER HE GIVES HER A CHRISTMAS BOUNES

Regarding the pluralization of last names question, what about last names that end in 'y,' like 'Kubersky'? 'Kuberskies'? 'Kuberskeys'?

Re: mis-use of "proverbial:" I had a religion teacher at college (30 years ago) who railed against people using "myth" to mean "untruth"--a myth is a religous story, which represents a certain kind of truth of its own-it should never be synonymous with "lie." Sadly, I think this was a losing battle.

..." is whom we have seen"

"whom we have seen" is a phrase, and the grammar has to be consistent within the phrase. Although "whom" might be too formal for a card, you cannot say it is correct as in being the subjective case. It is CLEARLY the object of the verb "seen."

X = [whom we have seen]
not
X = who

In "Love is whom we have seen", "whom" is the object of "have seen", not of "is."

Re: who/whom

Why doesn't she just say "And love is those we have seen" - sounds better to me.

I enjoyed this topic very much, as one of Jehovah Witnesses, we do not celebrate christmas as it is not Jesus' birthday. Your guess was accurate in pointing out that christmas did not come into practice until the twelve century. Thanks for the information.

What do you think of "there'll" and it's pronunciation like "they'll"? Both the word and the pronunciation seem odd, though more popular these days.

How did the British come to misuse the word holiday for vacation?

Can you ask her about the words scrooge and grinch? Were these words ever used before their famous books?

Subject - Verb Agreement. Is it a serious violation of English usage for so many presumably educated persons (politicians, media personalities, college professors, etc.) misuse the subject-verb agreement rule by saying : "There's many people who....." or "There's a whole host of reasons why people seem too lazy to properly use language when they should know better" ?