A business letter worth admiring

There are a few things in this letter I would correct: deeply-valued shouldn't have a hyphen; the men's names should have probably appeared in the same order throughout; and the family may be close, but there does need to be a space in "TheOrton." All in all, though, I thought the letter was wonderful. The message was warm and sincere, despite the sentimental content, and the picture of the company that emerged was solid.

I was especially happy to see that

• the right case (objective) was used in "No matter whom you're shopping for this holiday season";
• parallelism was preserved in "you'll find truly unusual gifts that evoke happy days, promote warm feelings, and bring a beaming smile to the face";
• a hyphen was used in the adjectival compound "a family-owned business";
• no comma separated adjectives in "special young person";
• no comma appeared before the restrictive clause "when young ones raced downstairs"; and
  
• that was used to denote the restrictive in "a family and a tradition that have endured."

The diction of the letter is also deserving of mention, I think: cherished; authentic; precepts of ardent, honest customer service; gratitude for…kindness, privileges, and opportunities. And note that three sentences toward the end begin with we:

• We will celebrate being part of a family and a tradition that have endured through hard work, frugality, imagination, and ingenuity. [The last four nouns are nothing special by themselves, but together they are fresh and strong.]
• We will celebrate the vast and growing audience of customers who today are part of that tradition, expanding it through their own deeply-valued stories and memories.
• We are delighted to welcome you to this tradition and to our family.
  

When the reader finally gets to "Enjoy!" the exclamation point does seem fitting.

Not Coming Soon

I asked my friend Michael LaGory to respond to David's post; rather than embed his response in the comments, I decided to make it a new post.

Grammar haters had better not hold their breath waiting for the day when people stop using “whom” altogether. It is only slightly more imminent than the day people start using it correctly.

I am not impressed by the argument that “whom” does not make a distinction necessary for understanding. The same is true for much more basic rules, such as subject-verb agreement. Few grammatical errors significantly impede understanding, however much they may erode respect.

The “who”-“whom” error is probably most likely in questions (“Who do you love?” “Who can I turn to when nobody needs me?”) and least likely when the pronoun is the object of a preposition. Constructions like “one of whom” are still widely used. I almost never see “one of who.” The tendency to postpone prepositions increases the likelihood of error. Many people whose ears would twitch at “the woman with who I fell in love” would admit “the woman who I fell in love with” without a second thought, their Inner Grammatical Watchdog unstirred.

The Inner Grammatical Watchdog, although widely domesticated, is not extinct. Although the wolf has turned poodle even in many professional writers, in editors like my dear friend Pat, the dominant primordial beast remains alive and snarling. Set one careless foot in her domain, and she’ll be on your case.

The Death of Whom

Is the word whom disappearing? It seems like people use who in all cases now. Although it's grammaticaly incorrect to use who in the objective case, eventually "whom" likely won't be with us. Does anyone think "whom" is dying? Will the objective case soon cease to exist for the word whom? Are copy editors the last line of defense against "whom's" demise? When do you think its time to let "whom" or other grammatical phenomenon die?