Stalking the wily usage guide

[vvvexation]

I seem to have developed a considerable amount of skill at finding explanations of really obscure points of grammar by way of Google. (In this case, I knew "whom have I become" sounded wrong in the same way that "whom am I" does, and wouldn't rest till I'd proved they were indeed governed by the same principle.)

This won't fit in the "current music" field, but saizai is currently playing rap songs with opera samples in. Pretty nifty, but it'd be nice if the rap had less goofy lyrics than "power over money, money over power, power over money...beeyatch."

Comments

[metalfatigue]

In the latter case, "become" is functioning as an intransitive verb; the indirect object is the prepositional phrase "like me."

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

Okay. "She became me", then. Surely it's a transitive verb in that case.

[metalfatigue]

That would be an example of the "perceived transitive force" mentioned in the referenced FAQ entry.

No matter how hard prescriptive grammarians try to pretend otherwise—and I do love them for it, Gods bless their hidebound little hearts—English is not Latin.