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- Topic: Polish >
- "Do kogo dzwonisz?"
34 Comments
This was my "natural response" and a phrase I use "To whom do you call?". It was marked incorrect.
I don't think I've ever heard "to" used with "call", unless you're talking about the overall geographic location of the person you're calling ("It's more expensive if you're calling to France.")
792
Using "ringing" instead of "calling" is fine, and is a translation accepted by dictionaries. And secondly, using "who" would be much more natural here than "whom". Nobody I know would ever say "Whom are you calling/ringing/phoning?". From Oxford Dictionaries:
"In practice, most people never use whom like this in speech because it sounds extremely formal They don't use whom at all, and instead use who in all contexts, i.e.:
Who do you think we should support?
Who do you wish to speak to?"
Added 'ringing'. Who/Whom is a neverending discussion here, usually both ways are starred.
- 792
Hi, I know, you can't win. If you use "who" here you'll get the pedants screaming at you. But I'm an EFL teacher, and we tell it like it is - "whom" is virtually never used in this sort of informal question. Accept it by all means, but it's not natural English.
Hallo, I grew was born and grew up in London, and "whom" is natural for me. I couldn't say "who are you calling" without feeling very strange. I'm not screaming at you, but I'd like to know what you mean by "natural".
- 792
Hi. I'm also British and an ageing RP speaker to boot, but I don't use "whom" very much in everyday language, especially not in a simple question like this. And evidence suggests that not many other educated speakers use it much either. This evidence comes from corpora, huge computerised collections of language usage, used by linguists, dictionary compilers and the writers of EFL (English as a foreign language) learning materials. As it's rather a subjective area I think I'll leave it to the experts (all sources are British). Note that when they say "informal", they mean normal, not colloquial.
This is from Practical English Usage, Michael Swan, OUP, a very influential book in the EFL world:
"Whom is not used much in informal English. We prefer to use who as an object, especially in questions.
Who did they arrest?
Who did you go with?
We use whom in a more formal style; and we must use whom after a preposition."
And here's Raymond Murphy, another very popular EFL author, writing in English Grammar in Use, CUP., talking about its use in defining relative clauses, eg "The man (who/whom/that) I love", where we generally leave out the pronoun anyway:
".. we do not often use whom. In spoken English we usually prefer who or that, or nothing"
You'll see much the same in dictionaries. I've already quoted and linked to Oxford a couple of comments back. This is what other British dictionaries have to say:
"In everyday spoken or written English, people usually use who rather than whom"
Longman
"We don’t use it (whom) very often and we use it more commonly in writing than in speaking" Cambridge
"Whom is only used in written English and in formal spoken English"
Macmillan
"whom ... often replaced by who, especially in less formal usage Chambers
I've written about the use of whom in some detail here:
http://random-idea-english.blogspot.com/2011/07/q-when-do-we-use-whom-instead-of-who.html
- 1313
I was an English teacher for many years, and you are correct. People often use "who" in a sentence of this type, however, it is not grammatically correct.
I don't think that your sentence has anything to do with phone calls.
Edit: Ok, Jellei pointed out to me that this does in fact work. Added now. But note that this implies a context where you are not acquainted with the caller, so you would most definitely use the formal pronouns.
Because to my knowledge this would be like "a mom calling to her son through an open window" (Polish "wołać") and "dzwonić" is on the phone.
Whom is old fashioned but still sometimes after a preposition. who are you calling but To whom are you making a call.
The base forms are actually dzwonek (diminutive) or dzwon. Dzwonka is the genitive of dzwonek.
My sixpence worth-It is nominative case before and after "verbs to be" -am are art is was were wert be been and being" therefore is who . Back when I was in school in the 50's and 60's. However "is calling" I don't think is classed as a "verb to be " It drives me crazy when I hear people mixing up he and him etc especially in the papers and with newsreaders.
- 1433
If someone asks you who are you calling, it would be like who are you telephoning, to whom are you calling, is formal for business or hotels receiving a call asking who the person wants to speak to.
- 1433
Sounds awkward in UK English,To whom do you call, would be better but very formal. More colloquial, who do you call or who are you calling to
Well, if it's formal then I don't think it can be a translation of "Do kogo dzwonisz?" - "dzwonisz" is used with people you're familiar with, after all.
