Subject/Object Confusion in The Silmarillion

Question

In Tolkein's "The Silmarillion", page 216 of the chapter "Of Túrin Turambar", the following is written:

"[...] this Wildman was the Mormegil of Nargothrond, whom rumour said was the son of Húrin of Dor-lómin."

Ignoring the array of proper nouns, shouldn't the subclause read "WHO rumour said was the son [...]", as "who was" is the main verb and subject of the clause? Even when phrased differently, one would say "Rumour said HE was the son", not "Rumour said HIM was the son".

Can somebody shed some light on Tolkein's use of the object case here?

EDIT: This is a slightly different case than the similar question that was linked, as "Rumour said" seems to take a more gramatically accusative tone, and are able to take an object, unlike "it is forseeable".

Even the best authors and their proofreaders sometimes make mistakes? — DJClayworth, Jul 08 '19 at 14:17
<< ... this Wildman was the Mormegil of Nargothrond, who, according to rumour, was the son of Húrin ... >> perhaps shows why some believe that speech tags should be regarded as parentheticals. << ... this Wildman was the Mormegil of Nargothrond, whom rumour placed at Wigan rather than Nargothrond ... >> shows a false model. — Edwin Ashworth, Jul 08 '19 at 16:54
I think this question is answered here: The use of nominative "whom" (as in “persons whom it is foreseeable are likely to...”) Also, I wrote an answer about this construction that many have some useful information, like a link to a Language Log post. — herisson, Jul 08 '19 at 17:54
I agree that "who" in place of "whom" would be correct, but I'd add that it would also be correct to keep "whom" and replace "was" with "to be": "whom rumour said to be the son ...." — Andreas Blass, Jul 08 '19 at 18:56
@AndreasBlass: that sounds weird to me. It might be possible, but the "said to be" construction is usually only used in the passive voice (see this Reddit post). "Whom" might be special (I found, but couldn't read an article that seems relevant: The Who/Whom Puzzle: On the Preservation of an Archaic Feature) but I would prefer to use the "who rumour said was..." construction. — herisson, Jul 09 '19 at 02:25
Rumour said may be more accusative in nature, but its object is still not who(m), but the entire clause. But as my answer to the question sumelic links to points out, it’s not quite as simple as that. — Janus Bahs Jacquet, Jul 10 '19 at 09:31

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 10 '19 at 09:16

The quoted sentence does not follow the usual prescribed pattern of usage (as you've noticed). There isn't any reason I know of for why Tolkien in particular would have used "whom" here: that is a known variant pattern of usage (as described in this Language Log post by Arnold Zwicky). See also the discussion in the comments of this Language Log post.

score -2 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 08 '19 at 16:08

-2

The first rule of English is that there are no rules. :)

Joking aside, this looks like an example of V2 word order, which is common in Germanic languages (SOV+V2), but has become archaic in English.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/V2_word_order

answered Jul 08 '19 at 16:08

zeroone

163

2

The question isn't about the word order. – DJClayworth Jul 08 '19 at 16:12
Ah, you're right! It's so easy to overlook, like you said. Can't delete it now. – zeroone Jul 08 '19 at 16:26

Subject/Object Confusion in The Silmarillion

2 Answers2