No?! Please revisit the post on i.e. and e.g.
I got great feedback about that tip, so today I’ll tackle another common grammar dilemma: when to use who vs. whom. Once again, I thank Grammatically Correct, by Anne Stilman, and my 8th grade English teacher, Mrs. Giles, for this info. (Am I the only one who had to diagram sentences? Am I the only one who thinks kids today should diagram?)
Interrogative Pronouns
Who and whom are both interrogative pronouns. Wait! Don’t panic. That just means that they are found at the beginning of questions that require an answer other than yes or no.
- If the pronoun is the subject of the sentence, you use who. For example:
Who is coming over for dinner on Friday?
The mystery person is coming over; he is the subject, and deserves a who.
- If the pronoun is the object of the sentence, you use whom.
Whom will you invite to the dance?
You is doing the inviting; whom is being invited and is the object of the verb.
- To help you figure out which pronoun to use, substitute “he” or “him” and see which sounds better. For example,
Is he/him coming over for dinner on Friday?
Will you invite he/him to the dance?
If you can use he and it sounds right, use who.
If you can use him and it sounds right, use whom. (Note that him and whom both have m’s.)
See, that’s not so bad. Now, we will cover one more situation- relative clauses. Stay with me and don’t let the grammarly words throw you off; it’s basically the same rule.
Relative Clauses
A relative clause is a special kind of dependent clause- it’s a piece of a sentence that can’t stand alone. (It doesn’t have a subject and a verb.) A relative clause gives information about a noun mentioned earlier in the sentence. For example:
Children who do not finish their chores will not get to play with electronics this afternoon.
The clause “who do not finish their chores” is the relative clause describing “children”.
- If the pronoun of the relative clause refers to the subject of the sentence, use who, as in the sentence above.
- If the pronoun of the relative clause refers to the object of the sentence, use whom. For example:
The singer whom Jackie wanted to hear had already performed.
In this example, Jackie is the subject, and the singer is the object, and therefore whom is needed.
- You can run the same “He/Him” test that you do for interrogative pronouns.
Word Nerd Workout
Practice makes it stick! Use your new (or merely refreshed) word nerd skill to choose the best pronoun for each example below. Share your answers in the comments, as well as any questions you may have. I’ve made the sentences silly to keep this fun.
- The girl who/whom submerged her face in the chocolate fountain had just failed her third driver’s test.
- To whom/who will you give this giant yellow dinosaur? Certainly not the family who/whom lives in the beach front condo?!
- Steve, whom/who are you trying to threaten with that giant Styrofoam sword?
Julia
Share the nerdiness:
Tweet: When to use who vs. whom: @juliatomiak, the word nerd, explains. http://ctt.ec/X0tOU+
I don’t have a lot of trouble distinguishing when to use who and whom, although the editors for my current series have discouraged the use of whom even when it is correct because it doesn’t fit the VOICE of my main character. Okay, gotta go back and find out when to use e.g!
Dianne, that’s an interesting point. Not many MG/YA characters sound so formal. I’ll have to remember that, and thanks for sharing!
Unlike Nicole, I never heard of the he/him trick. What a great way to remember – thanks!
As always . . . very helpful . . . thanks Julia. 😉 My boys diagram and they are teaching me too. 😉 Bless you dear!
Yay! Somebody out there is diagramming. I might have to torture my kids with it this summer…
So good to hear from you. I hope the Bible study is going well.
I always use the he/she trick! And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought of you when using ‘e.g.’ recently!!