{"id":121,"date":"2014-04-14T11:53:23","date_gmt":"2014-04-14T01:53:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/?p=121"},"modified":"2017-03-04T13:31:50","modified_gmt":"2017-03-04T02:31:50","slug":"the-difference-between-who-and-whom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/journal\/notes\/the-difference-between-who-and-whom\/","title":{"rendered":"The difference between who and whom"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n TLDR:<\/strong> Who<\/em> takes the subject position in a sentence, whereas whom<\/em> takes the object position, usually.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Despite the fact that the word whom<\/em> is beginning to decline in the English language, it is still commonly used in formal writing… and by Stephen Fry and Terry Pratchett, who I love<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

who (pronoun)\u2014the subject<\/strong> case\u2014which person or people; used as an introductory device to a secondary clause relating to a person or people previously mentioned<\/p>\n

\n \u2018Who did this?\u2019 the teacher demanded.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018Does anybody know who was behind the murder?\u2019 Watson asked.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018This woman here is the actress who is going to play the heroine.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

My cousin, who has come to stay with us for a week, is very stuck up.<\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

whom (pronoun)\u2014the object<\/strong> case\u2014used as the object of a verb or preposition<\/p>\n

\n Our veteran sergeant, in whom we all trusted, instructed us to prepare for war.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018To whom does this sock belong?\u2019 the nanny asked, holding her nose.<\/em><\/p>\n

To whom it may concern, I am writing this letter with the utmost disappointment.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018Whom did Jonathan run away with?\u2019<\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Since these two words trip us up quite often, there is a fairly easy system to adopt to ensure you\u2019ve used the right one in some instances of its usage. Just like who<\/em> and whom<\/em>, she<\/em> and her<\/em> adhere to the subject\/object case rules. Try to reword your sentence (or answer the question), replacing who<\/em> with she<\/em> and whom<\/em> with her<\/em>. For example:<\/p>\n

\n \u2018Who did this?\u2019<\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

becomes<\/p>\n

\n \u2018She did this.\u2019<\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She<\/em> sounds fine, whereas her<\/em> does not. Therefore who<\/em> is correct.<\/p>\n

\n \u2018Whom did Jonathan run away with?\u2019<\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

becomes<\/p>\n

\n \u2018Jonathan ran away with her.\u2019<\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Her<\/em> is grammatically correct, meaning whom<\/em> is also correct in this sentence.<\/p>\n

However, in spoken English\u2014and quite often in written English now, come to think of it\u2014who<\/em> is replacing whom<\/em> with a slight rewording of the sentence. For instance:<\/p>\n

\n ‘To whom does this sock belong?’ the nanny asked, holding her nose.<\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

has become<\/p>\n

\n ‘Who does this sock belong to?’ the nanny asked, holding her nose.<\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The second sentence is not wrong, per se, it just means you end your question with a preposition, which many writers strive very hard to avoid.<\/p>\n

Though whom<\/em> is increasingly being replaced with who<\/em>, whom<\/em> is not yet dead and still holds a valuable place in the English language. However, it is also important to note that the use of who<\/em> is not wrong in our ever-changing language, it is simply different and will probably, one day, be the predominant way of expression.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nobody managed to properly teach me this at school, so I had to teach myself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":520,"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121\/revisions\/520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}