[364] Dr. Webster, who was ever ready to justify almost any usage for which he could find half a dozen respectable authorities, absurdly supposes, that who may sometimes be rightly preferred to whom, as the object of a preposition.  His remark is this:  “In the use of who as an interrogative, there is an apparent deviation from regular construction—­it being used without distinction of case; as, ‘Who do you speak to?’ ’Who is she married to?’ ‘Who is this reserved for?’ ‘Who was it made by?’ This idiom is not merely colloquial:  it is found in the writings of our best authors.”—­Webster’s Philosophical Gram., p. 194; his Improved Gram., p. 136.  “In this phrase, ‘Who do you speak to?’ there is a deviation from regular construction; but the practice of thus using who, in certain familiar phrases, seems to be established by the best authors.”—­Webster’s Rudiments of E. Gram., p. 72.  Almost any other solecism may be quite as well justified as this.  The present work shows, in fact, a great mass of authorities for many of the incongruities which it ventures to rebuke.

[365] Grammarians differ much as to the proper mode of parsing such nouns.  Wells says, “This is the case independent by ellipsis.”—­School Gram., p. 123.  But the idea of such a case is a flat absurdity.  Ellipsis occurs only where something, not uttered, is implied; and where a preposition is thus wanting, the noun is, of course, its object; and therefore not independent.  Webster, with too much contempt for the opinion of “Lowth, followed by the whole tribe of writers on this subject,” declares it “a palpable error,” to suppose “prepositions to be understood before these expressions;” and, by two new rules, his 22d and 28th, teaches, that, “Names of measure or dimension, followed by an adjective,” and “Names of certain portions of time and space, and especially words denoting continuance of time or progression, are used without a governing word.”—­Philos.  Gram., pp. 165 and 172; Imp.  Gram., 116 and 122; Rudiments, 65 and 67.  But this is no account at all of the construction, or of the case of the noun.  As the nominative, or the case which we may use independently, is never a subject of government, the phrase, “without a governing word,” implies that the case is objective; and how can this case be known, except by the discovery of some “governing word,” of which it is the object? We find, however, many such rules as the following:  “Nouns of time, distance, and degree, are put in the objective case without a preposition.”—­Nutting’s Gram., p. 100.  “Nouns which denote time, quantity, measure, distance, value, or direction are often put in the objective case without a preposition.”—­Weld’s Gram., p. 153; “Abridged Ed.,” 118.