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We cannot ignore written language, of course,
and in fact written language is often simply the fossilized norm of a
former spoken version. Many prescriptive rules of the past are no
longer used by any modern speakers; to do so would be to sound like a
book. Things like ``to whom would you like to speak?" are archaic
sounding; one might write it but not say it.
Harold Schiffman
Fri Jan 17 09:48:04 EST 1997