European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 8, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Words amp within keeping with tradition let a whom Wither James j. Kilpatrick the writer s Art along time ago an English poet took pen in hand. He began his Canterbury talks Whan that april with his shores soothe the drought a of March hath per cd to the roote. A and Smale Fowles Makcon Melodye that Sec pc Al the Nyght with open be so prick the hem nature in Hir Coracs Thane Longan Folk to Goon on pilgrimages. Forgive me if today i summon the Shade of or. Chaucer in my own defense. A few weeks ago in a moment of reckless abandon i suggested that the time has come for writers to bid Farewell to a whom Quot except in constructions that demand an objective pronoun. In constructions involving nominative clauses i said nobody cares if we use a who Quot or  this was hardly a novel observation on my part. Richard Grant White a prominent 19th-Century grammarian said in 1870 that a whom Quot was Quot visibly  . Mencken commented in 1936 that a whom Quot is Quot fast  Anthony Bur Guss the British critic noted in 1980 that a a a whom is dying out in  in thinking that nobody cares about dear old a whom Quot i was sorely mistaken. Letters of outrage have been pouring in. A gentleman in Chicago called me a traitor. A gentlewoman in Scro Beach fla., said i had committed treason. Other readers had really unkind things to say. Hush our language evolves. It has been evolving since Long before Chaucer a pilgrims set upon their journey. It is steadily evolving now. Obviously our spelling evolves. We no longer write of a Smale of Weles but of Quot Small  these Birds done to Maken Melody a a they make Melody. Such evolution is a natural process. We cast off archaic forms As a tree Sheds dead Wood a a healthy process essential to survival. Changes cannot be forced. Old col. Mccormick tried for years to make a a thru stick in the Chicago Tribune. It was a valiant Effort but it failed a As All such revolutionary attacks on orthography arc bound to fail. In Middle English personal pronouns were politically Correct. In the singular a a thou was used As the subject pronoun it was Quot yes in the plural. The forms lingered until the 16th Century and then gradually faded from use. Professor Curnc Laid Down the Rule on Quot shall Quot watch out for the Best Way to Tell time Tony k0rnhe1ser my Grandfather gave me my first watch when 1 was 5. It had been his own watch and it had great sentimental value. It had a Silver expandable band and its Crystal face was faintly yellowed with age i slipped it around my left wrist arid admired it. Then 1 lowered my hand and my grandfathers watch which was Way too big for a 5-year-old, Slid rapidly off my wrist Landing face Down on the thick Kitchen tiles and shattered. Quot que Sera Sera Quot i said that being a popular song at the time. A get a Load of this kid a my grandmother exclaimed. A the drops an heirloom and thinks he s Rosemary  i did no to put on another watch for 35 years. If i needed to know what time it was i asked somebody. If nobody was around i turned on the radio. If there was nobody around and i did t have Access to a radio then i was probably on vacation so time  matter anyway. Recently As a Concession to Middle age i started wearing a Wristwatch. What if i have grandchildren what would i give them my left Banke albums As soon As 1 did i noticed All the other watches. They re everywhere. Pages and pages of them in the sunday paper. The country has gone watch crazy. People of n five six seven watches a even though they still have Only two wrists. Like fancy sch Mancy cars watches have become a Way of showing off How Well you re doing. Michael Milken had a $45,000 Gold rolex watch understandably he was concerned with time since he a doing so much of it. As most of you know digital is dead a though its still big in Maui a digit goes  if you have a digital watch get rid of it immediately so you done to further Embarrass your family. Retro is in. Today a watches strive to evoke a simpler Long ago time a some time before watches were invented As so Many use roman numerals. Except sonic Morados which have no numbers at All. Apparently you re supposed to guess reconditioned watches Are extremely in. Yuppies rummage through their attic looking for a watch that has been buried in a trunk for at least 70 years then pay out the wazoo to get it fixed. Many of these old watches have Radium dials so after a few Days your wrist glows in the dark a solving the problem of buying a night Light. The owner of this reconditioned Gem is deliriously proud until a 75-year-old with a Seiko laughs at him and asks a where on Earth did you get a piece of junk like that Sonny Quot As a consequence of this nostalgia for simplicity the Multi function watch of the �?T70s is pass. This is bad news for people who think a watch ought to be Able to Tell you at what temperature to Fry an egg on Mars or the latitude and Longitude of Sierra Leone. Of course they can buy an almanac and strap it to their other wrist. Years ago All anyone asked of a watch was that it Tell time. Then it had to be Waterproof then shatterproof. A common fantasy in the �?T60s was to smash John Cameron Swayze with a Hammer and throw him Over the Side of a tuna trawler and see if his infernal Timex was still ticking after they fished him out. I confess i want More in a watch than just the time. I want a Date. Not the Date a Date. Preferably with Michelle Pfeiffer. I want microwave ability. I want to be Able to put my watch in the microwave set the dial on High Power for two minutes and when 1 take it out i want it to have made dinner i want a watch w Ith four wheel drive. I want a watch that every so often spontaneously bursts into music by Zanfir master of the pan flute. And  in the declarative form he decreed a shall Quot is used in the first person and a will is used in the second and third persons a i shall go we shall go you will go he will go they will  my impression is that Quot shall Quot survives Only for emphasis in such assertions As a i shall  the Panama City Fla news Herald inadvertently provided an exhibit for my defense last month. A five column headline on Page 4a read a Host of new state Laws takes effect  the Lead paragraph reported changes that would take place oct.1, Quot when a Host of new regulations take  who was right the headline writer who treated a Host Quot As a singular noun or the reporter who treated Quot Host As a plural noun they were both right. Under the old rules of grammar the headline writer was Correct. Under the evolving concept of a notional agreement Quot the reporter was equally Correct. My guess is that the old Rule on collectives slowly is yielding. We see the change in such constructions As a Only a Small fraction of officeholders police officers and local judges actually take  it reads better and it sounds. Better to let those plural nouns control the verb. Back to a who Quot and  i will stick by my guns in approving Quot who do you Trust Quot As an acceptable alternative to a whom do you Trust a but i have no passionate feelings on the matter. Every writer has his own Crotchet. I am a nut on preserving precise meanings of transpire replica parameters Pristine and a Hundred others. It took a Long time to move us from a Smale of Weles to a Small fowls Quot and it May take another couple of centuries before a whom Quot altogether disappears. Of by me. English can wait. Universal press Syndicate a timely Eye catching invention. A amps Bob Crocket. I want a watch where instead of numbers it has the faces of All the democrats who voted against the Gulf War. I want a watch that cleans my House. It could be the maids watch i Don t care i want a watch that informs me How Many bowls of various cereals must be eaten to equal the nutritional value of one bowl of total. I want a watch that keeps track of my cholesterol and beeps like crazy if i so much As look at a French Fry. I want a watch that will make me look like the Guys in the Bugle boy ads and will make my wife look like the girls in the Michelob dry commercials. I want a watch that when your watch beeps in the movie theater my watch will launch a nuclear missile that takes out you and your watch. Truly i want my grandfathers watch Back. Creators Syndicate Page 24 a sunday november 8, 1992