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Grammar
Course: Grammar > Unit 3
Lesson 3: Relative pronouns"Who" versus "whom"
When do you use who vs. whom? Our language is changing, and it's becoming more appropriate to use "who" all over the place. But the basic rule is that "who" is the subject form ("Who is calling, please?") and "whom" is the object form ("Whom did you see in the garden?") The only thing to remember is to never use "whom" as a subject ("Whom is calling?" is ungrammatical).
Want to join the conversation?
- The section of the video beginning atprompts four questions and a comment. 3:00
1. Does ending a sentence with a preposition qualify as standard English grammar?
2. Do we now accept a preposition at the end of a sentence as we now accept who as a valid substitute for whom?
3. Is "To whom are you talking?" OK?
4. Does the looming triumph of who over whom simply reflect preference though expanded daily usage?
5. Perhaps, who versus whom ultimately does not matter IF the inherent reasoning behind a statement remains valid. Moving from whom to who seems not to be equivalent to arguing that 2+2=5.(16 votes)- 1. I was taught that a dangling preposition is a no-no but apparently that was a misconception.
2. There are times when a dangling preposition makes a sentence read a whole lot more smoothly than trying to eliminate it!
3. Yes.
4. Very likely since language shifts and evolves as people use it.
5. Personally, I disagree with David on this one. I think that the use ofwhom
should not go away since it allows instant differentiation between subject and object.(22 votes)
- Could you think of who and whom as informal and formal?(11 votes)
- Yeah, that's a great way to think of it! Just remember never to use
whom
as a subject pronoun—the trend is heading in the opposite direction.(19 votes)
- So is it Doctor Who or Doctor Whom?(20 votes)
- i think it would be doctor who sense he's more human(0 votes)
- Is the word whoso still proper grammar or did it use to be proper grammar? I find it kind of interesting that David mentioned that because I read so many books written in the 1800s that I never knew why they used such strange language so what i am asking is the english that they speak in books proper language still or was it proper English then and not so much now?(3 votes)
- Britney:
Language changes, is the thing. Think about how much slang has changed in the last ten years, even, or the last fifty.
If I went around saying, "Hey, man, that movie is outta sight," or "Wow, Britney, that essay you wrote was pretty keen," or "This scene is pretty groovy, but I've gotta make myself plenty scarce," you'd rightly recognize my language as being out-of-date.
Imagine that, but on a broader scale, affecting not just adjectives and common expressions, but the very structure of language.
There's nothing ungrammatical aboutwhoso
, as inwhoso pulleth this sword from this stone is rightwise born the king of England
. It's just out of style—what we'd call anarchaism
, on account of its being quite old.(23 votes)
- I'm still confused..(3 votes)
- How about making this comparison (for when "who" and "whom" function as pronouns). If, instead of "who" or "whom", you were using "I" and "me", then "Who" is used where you would say "I", and "Whom" is used where you would use "me".
Examples are needed:
She gave a flower to me.
Who gave a flower to whom?
She drove her car into them.
Who drove whose car into whom?(13 votes)
- Something that I noticed before, if you identify as non-binary, people use they, theirs, their or them, because they is a gender neutral term, like I see a person on the other side of the field, I wonder what they are doing, and therefore they is not always plural.😏(4 votes)
- what age group is this for?(1 vote)
- Based on what I know from studying grammar here, anywhere from 7 to 17. Hope that answer helps!(5 votes)
- Is “To whom are you talking ?” Considered correct ?(2 votes)
- This is perfect! "Whom" is the objective form of the pronoun, and in this sentence it's the perfect form to use as the object of the preposition "to".(3 votes)
- Wait, since when was whoso a word if anyone answers it would me good because I only know who and whom(1 vote)
- Since long, long ago. The 15th century legend of Arthur by Mallory included this line: "Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all England."(2 votes)
- this is the first time I heard this word - whoso
give some more examples to use this word(1 vote)- You don't need to worry about
whoso
, Meenu! It's an old-fashioned word; it fell out of use over a hundred years ago.(2 votes)
Video transcript
- [Voiceover] Hello grammarians. Welcome to one the thorniest
fights in English usage today. The question of whether
or not you should use who or whom in a sentence
as a relative pronoun. So there's this basic idea
that who is the subject form, and whom is the object form. Which means that if we're talking about someone who is the doer, then we say who. As in, the spy who loved me. As opposed to someone who
is the doee, the object. As in, the spy whom I loved. You see, cause in this
sentence, who is the subject. And in this sentence, I is the subject. Me is the object. And whom is the object. I loved whom? In this sentence, I am doing the loving. In this sentence it is the
spy who is doing the loving. That's the basic rule. But, this does not adequately reflect the way our culture actually uses and has used whom or who for some time. In many cases it has become permissible to use who as an object. Let me show you what I mean. So the thing to remember is that the basic rule
is a one way street. Because the way language is changing, whom is on its way out. I imagine in another 50, 75
years we won't be using it all. Is that sad? Sure, a little bit. I mean I'm sad that nobody
every uses the pronoun whoso. As in, whoso pulleth this
sword from this stone, is rightwise born king of England. We don't use that anymore. It's old fashioned. Now we say, whoever. And that's ok. So we know that the basic rule is that you use who as a subject and whom as an object. Well you can also now
use who as an object. The only thing you can't do
is whom is not a subject. That's the thing you need to remember, is that whom's use is not expanding. It is contracting. Who is taking over some of whom's duties. So let's go back to that spy example. So here are the four
possible options, right? The spy who loved me, the spy whom loved me, the spy who I loved, and the spy whom I loved. Now of these, only this one is incorrect. Because we're trying to
use whom as a subject. But here, the spy who I loved, where who is being an object, by the informal rules of our
grammar today, this is fine. Either of these is fine. The only one that's not
fine is this guy right here. The spy whom loved me. Because this language change
is going in one direction. And it's in the direction of
whom being used less often. So whom never expands from
its original position. Who does. So the next time you're
puzzling over what to do in the event of the sentence
who are you talking to, and whether or not this pronoun here should be who or whom, it's really an issue of tone
rather than correctness. Because both possibilities
are equally understandable. Yes, technically if you
wanted to be very correct you would say whom are you talking to, or you are talking to whom, because whom is the object
of this preposition. It's to whom, and so therefore
we would use the object form. But you find that when you
separate it out in this question, when you put the to at the end, and the whom question
particle at the beginning, this m just kind of falls away. Cause we're more likely to use whom when it's immediately
preceded by a preposition. But otherwise, it's probably
more likely gonna be who. Which is why it's not
that big of a deal to say who are you talking to. It's not technically correct, but it's been used for
so long that it's fine. You are talking to who is a little bit more
formal of a construction, and therefore you would
probably want to use whom. Saying you are talking
to who is not as common. So in this wild swamp of rule breaking there is one hard grammar
rule to pay attention to. And it's just never use whom as a subject. The role of whom in our
constellation of pronouns is decreasing, not expanding. Who is taking over whom. And since who is the subject, whom is not moving into that space. Whom is the object pronoun, and you use it when you're feeling fancy. You can learn anything. David out.