The "who" vs. "whom" Conundrum

I guess Mr. or Ms. Editor missed this one. Classic "who"vs. "whom" conundrum that befuddles even professional writers and copy editors. This one is from the Philippine Star, November 4, 2008.

Erroneous Inquirer Headline

I feel that it's my duty to point out a glaring (or not-so-glaring) error in the June 13, 2008 headline of The Philippine Daily Inquirer. The headline should've read "Negotiators say abductors chose whom to release." Whom, in this case would refer to the object of the sentence or clause. This is discussed extensively in Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing.

She offers a quick and dirty tip to avoid this confusion: (Thanks a lot, GG!)

"Like whom, the pronoun him ends with m. When you're trying to decide whether to use who or whom, ask yourself if the answer to the question would be he or him. That's the trick: if you can answer the question being asked with him, then use whom, and it's easy to remember because they both end with m. For example, if you trying to ask, 'Who (or whom) do you love?' The answer would be 'I love him.' Him ends with an m, so you know to use whom. But if you are trying to ask, 'Who (or whom) stepped on Squiggly?' the answer would be 'He stepped on Squiggly.' There's no m, so you know to use who. So that's the quick and dirty trick: if you can't remember that you use whom when you are referring to the object of the sentence, just remember that him equals whom."

Pedracio Tricycles

Being an optimist, I'd like to think that the folks at the mayor's office in Antipolo City need some time to fine tune their traffic plans with respect to the metal fences they put up along the national road.

This "yellow fence" in Bgy Dalig, just in front of Budgetlane Supermarket really needs re-thinking. Tricycles coming out of Pedracio Street are no longer allowed to turn left to get on the westbound lane.

Pedracio street almost intersects one end of the metal fence, and there's barely enough room for a tricycle to do a maneuver that's part u-turn, part left-turn. This series of photos is a typical tricycle driver maneuver:

"No left turn? How do I drive towards Shopwise from this point?"
Step 1: sneak up under the no U-turn sign.


Step 2: Drive forward, move behind the no u-turn sign, and then make the u-turn maneuver.

Step 3: Drive along, happy as a clam, pretend nothing extraordinary happened.

While they're at it, the Traffic Management Office (is there such an entity?) should lengthen the green signal at the ML Quezon traffic light. This is probably the fastest green light in the country. Adding time to the green light would definitely de-congest the westbound vehicles that usually bunch up around the ML Quezon intersection just before the traffic light.