Introducing English Linguistics

analysis
(or hypercorrection): an attempt to achieve formality even in con-
structions in which whom is used as subject. For instance, many might be
tempted to use whom in She’s the person whom I believe is in charge, even though
technically whom is replacing a subject form, not an object form: I believe that
she
[not 
her] is in charge. Over time, however, the choice between who and
whom will stop being an issue altogether: whom  will die out of English,
resulting in the passing on of Who do you trust? as a type of normal rather
than altered replication. This process, Croft argues, parallels the transmis-
sion of human genomes from individual to individual.
Metaphorically, the term language evolution has some explanatory
value, since languages do change slowly in a step-by-step manner. But to
claim that the processes by which species and languages evolve are the
same creates an equivalence that not all linguists accept, particularly
because many examples of linguistic change, such as the replacement of
whom by  who, have other explanations, such as