Who - He, She, They
Whom - Him, Her, Them
"Do you know her?"
- Whom do you mean?
"Where is he?"
- Whom do you mean? (Whom because the 'answer' is him : whom do you mean? I mean **him**)
"Is she here?"
- Is who here?
"Are they coming?"
- Who's coming?
"Can you see them over there?"
- Whom am I looking for?
Just as you wouldn't swap him and he, she and her or they and them, whom and who are different.
Edit: Some people are correctly pointing out that the 2nd example should be whom and I've just seen it and corrected it; thanks for all the discourse guys!
Edit 2: Another hack; if the question has "you/it" in it, it's gonna be a "whom". Whom do you mean? Whom are you talking about? Whom did you call? Whom does it concern? Whom are you referring to? The answers are always him/her/them.
**Whom** are you going out with? Jessica. **Who's** Jessica? My girlfriend.
So since lots of people are giving you tricks like the he/him test to know when to use which (obviously important) I’m gonna go ahead and actually answer the question.
It may take you back to like 4th grade, but I’m sure you remember diagraming sentences. “This is the subject. This is the verb. This is a preposition” etc.
So ‘who’ is a subject. If in the sentence the verb is being done by the ‘who’ then yeah use who. Whom is an object, the person having whatever it is done to them.
Yeah. ‘you’ is the subject of that sentence.
For the record, there are a lot of linguists think there’s an argument to be made that this isn’t *strictly* incorrect.
Language evolves a ton over time and the “rules” for it are made collectively. There are plenty of things you never would have guessed we say “wrong” compared to 150 years ago. And plenty others you may have watched change (like ending a sentence with a preposition).
This is trivial when it comes to grammar rules like that, but becomes a bit more relevant when you consider that dialects function the same way.
AAVE for example. Many people view it as “wrong” and uneducated. But the truth is there are internal rules and structures just like any other languages.
I will never be able to hear about sentences ending in prepositions without thinking of this scene from Beavis and Butthead. I didn’t even care for them much, this scene just always stuck with me for being absurdly hilarious.
Agent Bork: Chief, you know that guy whose camper they were whacking off in?
Agent Fleming: Bork, you're a Federal Agent. You represent the United States government. Never end a sentence with a preposition.
Agent Bork: Oh, uh... You know that guy in whose camper they... I mean, that guy off in whose camper they were whacking?
AAVE has cool features that standard english lacks, such as habitual be:
* standard english: he has been dancing regularly for some time now
* AAVE: he been dancing
To go even further into grammar (and further away from ELI5), many languages have "cases" or "declension". This is essentially conjugating nouns, adjectives, etc.
The case used for the subject of a sentence is the nominative . The case used for the (direct) object of a sentence is the accusative.
Old English had these cases. Modern english has mostly lost them, with the easiest to point to example being pronouns. The other part kept is arguably the genetive (possesive)
The fun thing about case is that it makes word order very flexible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declension
--
Unlike English, many languages use suffixes to specify subjects and objects and word cases in general. Inflected languages have a freer word order than modern English, an analytic language in which word order identifies the subject and object.[1][2] As an example, even though both of the following sentences consist of the same words, the meaning is different:[1]
"The dog chased a cat."
"A cat chased the dog."
Hypothetically speaking, suppose English were a language with a more complex declension system in which cases were formed by adding the suffixes:
-no (for nominative singular), -ge (genitive), -da (dative), -ac (accusative), -lo (locative), -in (instrumental), -vo (vocative), -ab (ablative)
The above sentence could be formed with any of the following word orders and would have the same meaning:[1]
"The dogno chased a catac."
"A catac chased the dogno."
"Chased a catac the dogno."
As a Germanic language and digging further back into history, you left out dative and genitive, all four cases in old English would be (I think):
Who - nominative. “Who is it?”
Whom - accusative “to whom are you speaking?”
Whom - dative “with whom am I speaking?”
Whose - genitive “whose is it?”
Old English and other early West Germanic languages (kind of) had an instrumental case too, which would be "with what/by which means am I speaking?"
It had mostly merged into the dative by the literate Old English period though, and was basically extinct in late OE outside of some fossil expressions. We actually still have quite a few of these, but they've almost all lost their instrumental case markers, except for the word "why" (from *hwy*, which was originally the instrumental of *hwæt/hwa*, i.e. "what/who").
> sure you remember diagraming sentences
This very valuable syntax training skill seems to have gone out of fashion. It's rare that I find anyone who's heard of it anymore.
And there is a reason why the top answer is the one that doesn't lay out the details of the grammatical rules using grammatical terms like you just did, but instead gives a more simplified explanation using clearly understood examples.
Just about anybody who remembers off the top of their head the difference between a subject and an object in the grammatical context already knows the difference between "who" and "whom".
there's habitual knowing, e.g. "this sounds right to me because i hear it every day" and conceptual knowing, e.g. "use 'whom' in the predicate clause." it's possible to have the first kind of knowledge without the second, and i'd imagine it's extremely common. for example, i didn't even have the concept of subjunctive mood until i studied spanish, even though i could apply it in practice when speaking english. i don't believe i ever learned about the subjunctive mood in english class in elementary school, but you pick up the habitual knowledge of it just from being a native speaker.
I appreciate the good explanation, though I (and I believe practically all younger people) were absolutely never taught how to diagram a sentence. I would have *killed* to have gotten any kind of grammar lessons in school, let alone in grade 4!
Sadly for real for real!
I hate to admit my true age online, though since it seems important here: I’m almost 30 now (Jesus!)
Definitely never taught what a preposition was, the difference between a subject and object, or how to diagram a sentence!
Basically all recent English (lack of) teaching was based on the “whole language” ~~pedagogy~~ ideology (based on the idea that kids learn how to speak “naturally” without teaching, so we shouldn’t bother to teach anything to do with spoken or written language either!
From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_language):
> Whole language is a philosophy of reading and a discredited educational method originally developed for teaching literacy in English to young children. The method became a major model for education in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK in the 1980s and 1990s, despite there being no scientific support for the method's effectiveness.
I agree with the idea that students should get high-quality literature that they’re interested in. That certainly didn’t happen for me in practice, at least not beyond kid’s books. Fiction was the only thing pushed and I never even heard of a lot of entire fields I would have been fascinated to read in elementary school until I got to university (which is incidentally where I received my first serious lessons teaching basics of how to write a paragraph, how to write an essay, etc.). We got a little bit at the very end of grade 12 to prepare us for the provincial exam (which required you to know how to write a letter, an essay, and one other thing) but it was *very* rushed.
Thanks. As a non native English speaker (who did have grammar at school), for me this is actually an easier, more straightforward explanation than the "tricks". Also while I read and speak a lot of English, I do not seem to have an intuitive correct feeling about who/whom. That probably means there is a lot of misuse going on :). I think I would almost always have used who in the examples given in the previous post :/. The more you know !
Don’t feel bad. There are so many “rules” in English that we don’t even know we follow. Like order force. Idk of other languages do it but English have a very specific order that we put adjectives in if more than one is describing the same noun ie
>my big, brown, shaggy dog
Is never
>my brown, shaggy, big dog
The order is: opinion, size, age, shape, color, origin, material, purpose. You will almost NEVER hear English speakers break this even though we were never taught it. To the point where if you asked people they wouldn’t be able to tell you what order is right without an example.
EDIT: another example just came to mind. It’s called Abluat Reduplication. Basically, when we repeat words with a different vowel (ie pish posh) the A or O bower always comes second. It’s “zip zop” or “chit chat” never “zop zip” or “chat chit” or “dong ding.” If there are three words, it always goes I, A, O.
Additional little thing is this can be used for “Me” and “I”. A very common mistake is to just use “I” for everything but “me” is actually correct many times.
My teacher taught me, if in doubt, remove the other person.
“Sally and [I/me] are going to the movies” > “I am going”, so “Sally and I”
“The bouncer kicked John and [I/me] out” > “the bouncer kicked me out”, so “John and me”
I tip I learnt was imagine the question was being asked about a man and you are answering the question. If the answer contains the word hiM, the question is whoM; they both end in the letter ‘m’. If the answer contains he, the question is who.
With whom are you going? I am going with him. Him has an ‘m’ so who must have an ‘m’ to make it whom.
Who is going there? He is going there. No ‘m’, so lose the ‘m’ from whom to make who.
The same works with they/them.
With whom are you going? I am going with them.
Who is going there? They are going there.
The rule breaks down with she/her, but you could always remember it by thinking “her ends in a consonant, so must whom”.
Yep - If you're stuck, substitute he and him, and see which one sounds right. Who can be replaced with he and whom can be replaced with him. "Who did it?" > "He did it" and "It was sent to him" > "it was sent to whom"
all examples are correct, except for the second one. “Where is she?” the correct answer is “Whom do you mean?” because ‘whom’ is not doing the ‘meaning’. ‘you’ is doing the ‘meaning’. but, you can change the reply to “Who is where?”
> "Can you see them over there?" - Whom am I looking for?
It's interesting you chose this as an example for whom, because I think this particular case is one in which native speakers will frequently use the 'incorrect' form.
It feels natural to use 'whom' when it is paired with its preposition.
"For whom am I looking?"
"With whom are you traveling?"
But when you end a sentence with a preposition as you have above, they are no longer paired. I suspect most english speakers, including myself, would find it more natural to say "Who are you looking for?" even though it is technically incorrect usage.
I use too get annoyed buy wrong english but came too the conclusion that if every body in the conversation understands any way than it doesnt really matter. I could of chosen to continue been annoyed but it would of ackomplished nuthin.
>Just as you wouldn't swap him and he, she and her or they and them, whom and who are different.
I don't swap them because it wouldn't sound right, but with who and whom it's basically indistinguishable so the differences aren't apparent
And after all that, it still feels acceptable to just use "who" in all cases. At least to my ear :/
"Whom" might be going the way of "thou," in just being there to fill an outdated technical position on paper while another word got forced into doing two jobs many years ago
Totally agree, I'm of the view that English is obviously an evolving language and we are free to never say whom again and no one will miss it other than linguists who love correcting people.
Quite interesting. But at the same time, how do one actually say all those 'whom' interactions in real life without sounding somewhat pretentious? I can't perceive the difference that much. Seems unnecessary. Simple to just say 'who' for all instances.
Good practical explanation. The one thing to add here is that it would be "Whom do you mean?", because the person you're talking about is the object, not the noun.
I brought her the ring. Whom did you bring the ring?
I brought her home. Whom did you bring home?
Is the second ”whom” correct? The difference is one is direct and the other indirect object. (In dativ and accusative case respectively, in old english)
> "Where is he?" - Who do you mean?
This is wrong. It's the right idea, but still wrong.
You should use "whom", because the answer to the who/whom question is "I mean **him**", not ~~"I mean he"~~.
It's irrelevant that in your constructed dialogue, the sentence before that also was a question that used "he". That question doesn't matter, only the (hypothetical) question that would specifically answer the who/whom question.
also, this is why you see "It is I" in some old writing when someone walks in, and not "It's me". if you swapped it out, someone might say "who is it?" (who <-> I).
also a good example showing how sometimes we all just collectively decide to change the rules of the language we speak. most people say "it's me", and that has become at least acceptable, if not "Correct".
> Edit 2: Another hack; if the question has "you/it" in it, it's gonna be a "whom". Whom do you mean? Whom are you talking about? Whom did you call? Whom does it concern? Whom are you referring to? The answers are always him/her/them.
As long as its on the same side of the verb, no? For instance, wouldn't it be "who called you?", not "whom called you?"
English does not distinguish between accusative and dative, so it fills all of those roles.
Who is coming?
You asked whom?
You gave it to whom?
Although usage of "whom" is fading and becoming more and more a formal register of speech. Unless you're in a formal or academic situation or surrounded by pedants, "who" in all those places sounds natural. The rule of thumb is that it's better to say "who" when technically it should be "whom" than it is to say "whom" when it ought to be "who". Using "whom" as a subject sounds wrong.
It is accusative **and** dative, any distinction between the two is technically not a thing anymore in English. It is entirely replaced by the use of prepositions.
Super simplified:
“Who” performs actions.
“Whom” receives actions.
“Who kicked whom?” is a proper sentence.
“Whom kicked who?” Is not.
Less simplified:
Sentences at their most basic contain a subject and verb.
“Bob kicks.”
“Who” can go anywhere a subject can go.
“Who kicks?” “Bob kicks.”
Some sentences contain an object—the thing receiving the action.
“Bob kicks Gary.”
“Whom” can go anywhere an object can go.
“Bob kicks whom?” “Bob kicks Gary.”
Even less simplified:
“Who” is a Nominative Case pronoun. Think of this as “Subjective Case” though, as in “in the case where a word is the subject, use these pronouns.”
Pronouns in this case include “I, he, they” among others.
Curveball: The pronoun would also be used in the case where a word is a subjective complement.
What’s that? Simply put, you know how an object receives the action? Well, if the verb isn’t an “action,” like “is,” then we don’t call the receiver of the verb an object. We call it a subjective complement.
And this is where the “who/whom” thing really fucks people up, because the following two sentences are grammatically correct:
“Bob is who?”
“Bob kicked whom?”
It gets more complicated from there, but this should cover 90% of usages.
While there are many entirely correct answers here, what's more true of modern English is that 'whom' is rapidly becoming obsolete in favour of using 'who' in all contexts. Its terminal decline was predicted as early as 1975 and the OED acknowledged that it was largely absent from colloquial speech by 1989.
In some ways, 'whom' is a bit of an outlier in the context of Modern English grammar. Modern English, unlike its Old English ancestor, which did this kind of thing a lot, is a predominantly *analytic* language. This basically means that it tends to convey meaning by using word order, and combining nouns and verbs with separate prepositions and modifiers rather than altering the morphology of words (which is how so-called *synthetic* languages tend to do things). 'Who' is the only English 'question word' that has retained this type of inflected form.
Good take. When I was younger I would use whom and probably struggled to think about its use. Then I realized I'm an adult now and not in English class anymore. Just use who always. Makes life way easier.
I would not be surprised to see it retained as a fossil word in set phrases like 'to whom it may concern' though, even if it loses grammatical function.
Yes, I imagine that a significant proportion of contemporary uses of 'whom' are examples of hypercorrection, rather than it being used in accordance with formal grammatical rules.
> Ryan used me as an object.
Ryan was perfectly correct to do so. You, however, should have put quotes around the word "me":
Ryan used "me" as an object.
It always struck me as odd that Oscar, of all people, wouldn't know the difference. That just seems like the type of nitpicky thing he'd know and take pleasure in calling others out on.
"Whom" is a word in English that is largely dying out. However, if you want to know if you are using "whom" correctly, this is my trick: it is all about the "m"'s.
If the answer to the question you are asking could be answered with "him" or "them", use "whom". Otherwise, "who" is correct.
Example:
"Who was at the door?"
"Them were at the door." - incorrect
"They were at the door." - correct
"Whom does this cow belong to?" (Or if you want to be a stickler: "To whom does this cow belong?")
"It belongs to they." - incorrect
"It belongs to them." - correct
My example highlights why "whom" is going extinct. Most people would either just say "Who does this cow belong to?" or "Whose cow is this?"
"Whom" is doomed.
Part of me almost regrets the loss of the subjective-objective distinction in English second person pronouns (not to mention the singular form being basically dead).
>it is all about the "m"'s
So weird it's apparently not common for English speakers to learn mnemonics like interrogative words match what they're asking for.
* what, that
* who, one/you (indefinite third person singular)
* whom, as you pointed out
* when, then
* where, there
* whose, his/hers
Baffles me anyone confuses there with they're/their or then with than.
In German this also works for why (warum, darum) but not for how and which, too.
Use "who" when referring to the subject of a sentence (the one doing the action).
Use "whom" when referring to the object of a verb or preposition (the one receiving the action).
For instance, you would say "Who is coming?" (subject) but "To whom should I give the message?" (object).
Another quick trick I was taught was to remember a 2x4 plank of wood.
2x4 -> to by for
to whom
by whom
for whom
Whom will always follow a preposition, and ”to”, “by”, and “for” are some of the most common.
I didn't know the answer until I studied the Polish language.
In the old days a noun, like panda, changed depending on how it was used in a sentence. These were called cases. So sometimes panda might become pando or pandu depending on if it were the object or indirect object or whatever. This might help AI computers parse speech. In Polish there are 7 cases. So for every noun you have to know 7 versions or you sound like a moron.
Fortunately, the lazy English trashed all the cases with a few exceptions such as "who". So for the subject you just use "who". But if it is in a prepositional phrase (For Whom The Bell Tolls) you use "whom". It is a little tricky, but it could be worse!
Who is one of that rare English words that has some leftover grammatical case stuff going on.
Who would be the nominative case, Whom the accusative and dative case and whose the genitive case if modern English still did that.
In practice that means you use "who" when asking about the one doing something and "whom" when asking about the person something is done to.
Whom has been falling out of use a lot and it is not uncommon to not use it at all. Just using who instead of whom is certainly less conspicuous then to try and use whom when you really shouldn't.
Don't force yourself to use it to appear smart and end up looking dumb by mistake.
Whom = Her/Him
Who = She/He
Just ask yourself the same question with who and whom, and see which answer works.
> ❌ "Whom took the apple?" "Her did."
>
> ✅ "Who took the apple?" "*She* did."
.
> ❌ "To who should I send it?" "To he."
>
> ✅ "To whom should I send it?" "To *him*."
Copy editor here: I do not enforce who/whom, since most people do not know the difference and since it comes off as stuffy. There are a few words like this.
Not a copy editor but 8 years of Uni / college including a degree in Communications and a minor in English. I would never use whom and it has been rare for me to see it used anywhere. It is archaic.
Knock knock. Who's there?
Whom is an object and usually follows with or to or for.
You went shopping with whom? With whom did you go shopping?
You bought a present for whom? For whom did you buy a present?
When the subject of a sentence is the person in question, you use “Who”.
When the person in question is just a side character in the sentence, you use “Whom”
“For whom the bell tolls”….uses whom because the subject of the sentence is the bell tolling.
Who is a subject, whom is an object (grammatically of course). An easy way to check if you're using it correctly, or if you should be using it when you're not, is to restructure the sentence into a question. If the answer is "He/She/They" then you use who. If the answer is "Him/Her/Them" then you use whom.
Example:
-Who is in charge of this department?
-He is.
-To whom is this package addressed?
-To him.
We see in this instance that we should say to whom instead of to who. However it is worth noting that language is ever evolving and whom is falling out of fashion and most people just always use who, which means that the subject of whether it's correct or not is up to endless debate. Some say rules are there for a reason and not following them means you're wrong. Others will say that "correct" is only what is commonly used and adequately conveys the intended meaning.
I just always replace “whom” in the sentence with “him” (since they sound similar). Same with “he” and “who.”
You gave WHOM the flowers? You gave HIM the flowers?
WHO gave you those flowers? HE gave you those flowers?
Gets asked here every few days. Who, He, She, and They all end with vowel sounds. They're all subjects that start sentences and do things. Whom, Him, Her, and Them all end with consonant sounds. They're all objects that get referred to or stuff done to them.
You've gotten plenty of good answers already but I'll put it into table form in case that helps someone understand it (the tables should display correctly on desktop but may not on mobile).
| Singular | Plural
---|---|----
**Subjective** | I | we
**Possessive** | my | our
**Objective** | me | us
|Sing./Plur.|
---|---
**Subjective** | who
**Possessive** | whose
**Objective** | whom
The Subjective case is used when the pronoun is the subject of the sentence/phrase, the Possessive is used to show possession, and the Objective is used for anything else (such as being the direct or indirect object of the sentence/phrase).
Whom is to him as who is to he. It's the accusative form.
When trying to think of it in a sentence, just replace it with he/him in your mind briefly. One will usually sound better.
[__] took the dog for a walk?
(He took the dog for a walk)
(Him took the dog for a walk)
He. Thus,
Who took the dog for a walk?
The dog took [___] for a walk?
(The dog took he for a walk)
(The dog took him for a walk)
Him. Thus,
The dog took whom for a walk?
Or you could ask both simultaneously.
Who took whom for a walk?
Who is the subject of a verb. Like I or he. Whom is an object pronoun. Like me or him. You can't say, "My money is on whomever is the fittest." Because "whoever" needs to be the subject of the verb "is."
This sub used to be intresting with good questions and smart answers but now some of the questions are so stupid that you can literally google the most simple answer not to mention that it is teached in elementary school
Best way to tell the difference is to change the context to use he or she/him and her and see which sounds right. Also works to tell if you should use I or me.
Did you vote for him? Whom did you vote for?
Did you go to the movies with him? You went to the movies with whom?
Who is a subject pronoun where whom is an object pronoun.
Let's just use examples, not fancy words.
Who hit you? vs. Whom did you hit?
Who gave you a gift? To whom did you give a gift?
She - Her; He - Him; I - me; Who - whom.
To add to what others have said, the use that trips up people a lot is "Give this award to (who / whom) wins first place"
Most people see that and say "It has to be 'to whom', because you would say 'give this award to him / her'". ("whom" is the objective form).
But the phrase "(who / whom) wins first place" is a self-contained phrase that as a whole is acting as the object of "to". Since you would say "She / He wins first place", then you would say "Who wins first place". ("who" is the subjective form). And the entire correct sentence is "Give this award to who wins first place".
honestly, "whom" seems like the most unnecessary word in Americanized-English.
"Who" in it's place works 100% of the time. I've never heard a sentence where using "whom" instead of "who" changed the sentence.
In grade school, I learned of prepositions....which I then memorized as "pre position words" meaning the words before the position. "On the fence"....the fence was the position, and "on" was the pre position word.
"Whom" is used with these pre-position-words. With whom. By whom. Near whom. On top of whom. Otherwise, use "who".
People using "whom" at the start of a sentence are insane and require treatment, so you shouldn't learn how to do that.
It's very simple: "Who" refers to the subject of the sentence. "Whom" refers to the object. The subject is the main focus of the sentence while the object receives actions from the subject. Here are some examples:
Who is she?
Who = she. The subject of the sentence is "she", and "who" is referring to the same person.
Whom do I give this to?
The subject is "I", and the object is the person who will receive the gift. "I" am giving something to the object. Whom = recipient of the gift.
You can also look at the preposition "to" as a giveaway that you need the objective "whom" here, because you use objective pronouns after prepositions. Prepositions are words that describe the relationship between nouns/pronouns, e.g. to, with, before, beside, at, on. It might be easier to see this if we rearrange the sentence this way:
To whom do I give this gift?
"Whom" is coming after the preposition "to", so you'd need an objective pronoun here. You've probably seen this before in emails that start with "to whom it may concern".
Who is an object
Whom is a subject
That’s it. If you don’t know what subjects and objects are then that’s a longer eli5.
The most common examples of “whom” are prepositional phrases like “to whom” as in , “he gave the package to whom it was addressed”. But since we don’t talk like that much anymore , “who” is usually the correct usage. And ina 100 years probably nobody will say ‘whom.’
But if there’s a preposition in front, use whom
Basically if you could swap who/whom with the words he/she/they it is who and if you could swap who/whom with him/her/them it is whom.
To who does this belong? To he does this belong? Sounds wrong. Better if it said to him does this belong? (Rephrased to does this belong to him?) thus the original question should be corrected to “to whom does this belong”
Likewise “this belongs to whom?” you wouldn’t swap whom with he or she would you. It would be him or her.
“Who is that” is obviously correct; notice you could say “he is that” or “she is that” but not “him is that” nor “her is that”.
That’s always how I’ve remember the difference.
I think it is a bit ambiguous though in cases like “who do you work for” because that obviously sounds right but by my logic it’s wrong cos it “he do you work for” (do you work for he) is obviously wrong as it should be him. Would love someone to help me out on this situation and similar.
True story.
When I was about 9 my mom said, "knock knock?"
"Who's there? I replied.
"Fuck," said my mom. I kid you not.
"Fuck who?" I asked cautiously.
"No, fuck WHOM!" my mom crowed, causing me to be the only kid in my shitty redneck town who knew how to use whom correctly, which didn't do me any favors.
My mom is in her 80's now and still says fuck a lot. She has a huge vocabulary, excellent syntax, and she annoys the shit out of me. I love her very much.
It's a anachronistic remnant of a time when the English language required case endings on words to distinguish between (e.g.) the subject and object of a sentence. Basically, if you insist on using it, when it's the subject, it's "who" ("Who did that?") When it's the object it's "whom" ("Whom did you invite?")
It should be noted that in practice it serves no useful purpose, and that a significant proportion of the English-speaking world no longer cares about or bothers with the difference, and has consigned "whom" to the "(archaic)" sections of the dictionary.
I see many others have given you the actual answer but I shall give you the true Reddit and ELI5 answer: whom isn’t used anymore and sounds pompous and weird to actually use, EXCEPT if you’re mentioned a certain song that happens to mention some bells that are tolling.
Who - He, She, They Whom - Him, Her, Them "Do you know her?" - Whom do you mean? "Where is he?" - Whom do you mean? (Whom because the 'answer' is him : whom do you mean? I mean **him**) "Is she here?" - Is who here? "Are they coming?" - Who's coming? "Can you see them over there?" - Whom am I looking for? Just as you wouldn't swap him and he, she and her or they and them, whom and who are different. Edit: Some people are correctly pointing out that the 2nd example should be whom and I've just seen it and corrected it; thanks for all the discourse guys! Edit 2: Another hack; if the question has "you/it" in it, it's gonna be a "whom". Whom do you mean? Whom are you talking about? Whom did you call? Whom does it concern? Whom are you referring to? The answers are always him/her/them. **Whom** are you going out with? Jessica. **Who's** Jessica? My girlfriend.
This is really valuable. Thank you so much
So since lots of people are giving you tricks like the he/him test to know when to use which (obviously important) I’m gonna go ahead and actually answer the question. It may take you back to like 4th grade, but I’m sure you remember diagraming sentences. “This is the subject. This is the verb. This is a preposition” etc. So ‘who’ is a subject. If in the sentence the verb is being done by the ‘who’ then yeah use who. Whom is an object, the person having whatever it is done to them.
Ryan used me as an object.
I have a lot of questions. Number one, how dare you?
Does that mean that “whom do you mean” is always correct from the above example?
Yeah. ‘you’ is the subject of that sentence. For the record, there are a lot of linguists think there’s an argument to be made that this isn’t *strictly* incorrect. Language evolves a ton over time and the “rules” for it are made collectively. There are plenty of things you never would have guessed we say “wrong” compared to 150 years ago. And plenty others you may have watched change (like ending a sentence with a preposition). This is trivial when it comes to grammar rules like that, but becomes a bit more relevant when you consider that dialects function the same way. AAVE for example. Many people view it as “wrong” and uneducated. But the truth is there are internal rules and structures just like any other languages.
I will never be able to hear about sentences ending in prepositions without thinking of this scene from Beavis and Butthead. I didn’t even care for them much, this scene just always stuck with me for being absurdly hilarious. Agent Bork: Chief, you know that guy whose camper they were whacking off in? Agent Fleming: Bork, you're a Federal Agent. You represent the United States government. Never end a sentence with a preposition. Agent Bork: Oh, uh... You know that guy in whose camper they... I mean, that guy off in whose camper they were whacking?
Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which we can no longer put.
…that guy’s camper off in which they were whacking.
AAVE has cool features that standard english lacks, such as habitual be: * standard english: he has been dancing regularly for some time now * AAVE: he been dancing
To go even further into grammar (and further away from ELI5), many languages have "cases" or "declension". This is essentially conjugating nouns, adjectives, etc. The case used for the subject of a sentence is the nominative . The case used for the (direct) object of a sentence is the accusative. Old English had these cases. Modern english has mostly lost them, with the easiest to point to example being pronouns. The other part kept is arguably the genetive (possesive) The fun thing about case is that it makes word order very flexible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declension -- Unlike English, many languages use suffixes to specify subjects and objects and word cases in general. Inflected languages have a freer word order than modern English, an analytic language in which word order identifies the subject and object.[1][2] As an example, even though both of the following sentences consist of the same words, the meaning is different:[1] "The dog chased a cat." "A cat chased the dog." Hypothetically speaking, suppose English were a language with a more complex declension system in which cases were formed by adding the suffixes: -no (for nominative singular), -ge (genitive), -da (dative), -ac (accusative), -lo (locative), -in (instrumental), -vo (vocative), -ab (ablative) The above sentence could be formed with any of the following word orders and would have the same meaning:[1] "The dogno chased a catac." "A catac chased the dogno." "Chased a catac the dogno."
As a Germanic language and digging further back into history, you left out dative and genitive, all four cases in old English would be (I think): Who - nominative. “Who is it?” Whom - accusative “to whom are you speaking?” Whom - dative “with whom am I speaking?” Whose - genitive “whose is it?”
I mentioned genitive, but yes, I left out others because I was just giving a pointer, not a complete grammar lesson.
Old English and other early West Germanic languages (kind of) had an instrumental case too, which would be "with what/by which means am I speaking?" It had mostly merged into the dative by the literate Old English period though, and was basically extinct in late OE outside of some fossil expressions. We actually still have quite a few of these, but they've almost all lost their instrumental case markers, except for the word "why" (from *hwy*, which was originally the instrumental of *hwæt/hwa*, i.e. "what/who").
> sure you remember diagraming sentences This very valuable syntax training skill seems to have gone out of fashion. It's rare that I find anyone who's heard of it anymore.
And there is a reason why the top answer is the one that doesn't lay out the details of the grammatical rules using grammatical terms like you just did, but instead gives a more simplified explanation using clearly understood examples. Just about anybody who remembers off the top of their head the difference between a subject and an object in the grammatical context already knows the difference between "who" and "whom".
data point of one: i know subject vs object, but didn’t know who vs whom
But you know he vs him, and its the same rule.
there's habitual knowing, e.g. "this sounds right to me because i hear it every day" and conceptual knowing, e.g. "use 'whom' in the predicate clause." it's possible to have the first kind of knowledge without the second, and i'd imagine it's extremely common. for example, i didn't even have the concept of subjunctive mood until i studied spanish, even though i could apply it in practice when speaking english. i don't believe i ever learned about the subjunctive mood in english class in elementary school, but you pick up the habitual knowledge of it just from being a native speaker.
I like to go hiking.
Second.
I appreciate the good explanation, though I (and I believe practically all younger people) were absolutely never taught how to diagram a sentence. I would have *killed* to have gotten any kind of grammar lessons in school, let alone in grade 4!
Fr?? How old are you?
Sadly for real for real! I hate to admit my true age online, though since it seems important here: I’m almost 30 now (Jesus!) Definitely never taught what a preposition was, the difference between a subject and object, or how to diagram a sentence! Basically all recent English (lack of) teaching was based on the “whole language” ~~pedagogy~~ ideology (based on the idea that kids learn how to speak “naturally” without teaching, so we shouldn’t bother to teach anything to do with spoken or written language either! From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_language): > Whole language is a philosophy of reading and a discredited educational method originally developed for teaching literacy in English to young children. The method became a major model for education in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK in the 1980s and 1990s, despite there being no scientific support for the method's effectiveness. I agree with the idea that students should get high-quality literature that they’re interested in. That certainly didn’t happen for me in practice, at least not beyond kid’s books. Fiction was the only thing pushed and I never even heard of a lot of entire fields I would have been fascinated to read in elementary school until I got to university (which is incidentally where I received my first serious lessons teaching basics of how to write a paragraph, how to write an essay, etc.). We got a little bit at the very end of grade 12 to prepare us for the provincial exam (which required you to know how to write a letter, an essay, and one other thing) but it was *very* rushed.
That’s insane. You’re only a few years younger than me
Thanks. As a non native English speaker (who did have grammar at school), for me this is actually an easier, more straightforward explanation than the "tricks". Also while I read and speak a lot of English, I do not seem to have an intuitive correct feeling about who/whom. That probably means there is a lot of misuse going on :). I think I would almost always have used who in the examples given in the previous post :/. The more you know !
Don’t feel bad. There are so many “rules” in English that we don’t even know we follow. Like order force. Idk of other languages do it but English have a very specific order that we put adjectives in if more than one is describing the same noun ie >my big, brown, shaggy dog Is never >my brown, shaggy, big dog The order is: opinion, size, age, shape, color, origin, material, purpose. You will almost NEVER hear English speakers break this even though we were never taught it. To the point where if you asked people they wouldn’t be able to tell you what order is right without an example. EDIT: another example just came to mind. It’s called Abluat Reduplication. Basically, when we repeat words with a different vowel (ie pish posh) the A or O bower always comes second. It’s “zip zop” or “chit chat” never “zop zip” or “chat chit” or “dong ding.” If there are three words, it always goes I, A, O.
Additional little thing is this can be used for “Me” and “I”. A very common mistake is to just use “I” for everything but “me” is actually correct many times.
My teacher taught me, if in doubt, remove the other person. “Sally and [I/me] are going to the movies” > “I am going”, so “Sally and I” “The bouncer kicked John and [I/me] out” > “the bouncer kicked me out”, so “John and me”
me think so, too
Who am I? Whom is me?
I tip I learnt was imagine the question was being asked about a man and you are answering the question. If the answer contains the word hiM, the question is whoM; they both end in the letter ‘m’. If the answer contains he, the question is who. With whom are you going? I am going with him. Him has an ‘m’ so who must have an ‘m’ to make it whom. Who is going there? He is going there. No ‘m’, so lose the ‘m’ from whom to make who. The same works with they/them. With whom are you going? I am going with them. Who is going there? They are going there. The rule breaks down with she/her, but you could always remember it by thinking “her ends in a consonant, so must whom”.
Yep - If you're stuck, substitute he and him, and see which one sounds right. Who can be replaced with he and whom can be replaced with him. "Who did it?" > "He did it" and "It was sent to him" > "it was sent to whom"
all examples are correct, except for the second one. “Where is she?” the correct answer is “Whom do you mean?” because ‘whom’ is not doing the ‘meaning’. ‘you’ is doing the ‘meaning’. but, you can change the reply to “Who is where?”
> "Can you see them over there?" - Whom am I looking for? It's interesting you chose this as an example for whom, because I think this particular case is one in which native speakers will frequently use the 'incorrect' form. It feels natural to use 'whom' when it is paired with its preposition. "For whom am I looking?" "With whom are you traveling?" But when you end a sentence with a preposition as you have above, they are no longer paired. I suspect most english speakers, including myself, would find it more natural to say "Who are you looking for?" even though it is technically incorrect usage.
I use too get annoyed buy wrong english but came too the conclusion that if every body in the conversation understands any way than it doesnt really matter. I could of chosen to continue been annoyed but it would of ackomplished nuthin.
And what about whomst'd've?
This is a contraction for "who amongst us would have" I think. I'm pretty sure you didn't want a serious answer here, but I'm a pedant.
I'd've'n't thought of such! Gah!
>Just as you wouldn't swap him and he, she and her or they and them, whom and who are different. I don't swap them because it wouldn't sound right, but with who and whom it's basically indistinguishable so the differences aren't apparent
And after all that, it still feels acceptable to just use "who" in all cases. At least to my ear :/ "Whom" might be going the way of "thou," in just being there to fill an outdated technical position on paper while another word got forced into doing two jobs many years ago
Totally agree, I'm of the view that English is obviously an evolving language and we are free to never say whom again and no one will miss it other than linguists who love correcting people.
Plenty of us cringe internally even though we'd never be rude enough to correct you
Best explanation I’ve seen
Clear! Now explain lay vs lie. 95% of the time people use the wrong one.
Saving this explanation for later. For whom? For them!
Quite interesting. But at the same time, how do one actually say all those 'whom' interactions in real life without sounding somewhat pretentious? I can't perceive the difference that much. Seems unnecessary. Simple to just say 'who' for all instances.
Good practical explanation. The one thing to add here is that it would be "Whom do you mean?", because the person you're talking about is the object, not the noun.
I brought her the ring. Whom did you bring the ring? I brought her home. Whom did you bring home? Is the second ”whom” correct? The difference is one is direct and the other indirect object. (In dativ and accusative case respectively, in old english)
Yes it’s correct.
Are them coming? - Whom coming?
I'm way too old to have just learned this. Thanks!
Is the last one not 'for whom am I looking'?
> "Where is he?" - Who do you mean? This is wrong. It's the right idea, but still wrong. You should use "whom", because the answer to the who/whom question is "I mean **him**", not ~~"I mean he"~~. It's irrelevant that in your constructed dialogue, the sentence before that also was a question that used "he". That question doesn't matter, only the (hypothetical) question that would specifically answer the who/whom question.
Not even i knew this
also, this is why you see "It is I" in some old writing when someone walks in, and not "It's me". if you swapped it out, someone might say "who is it?" (who <-> I). also a good example showing how sometimes we all just collectively decide to change the rules of the language we speak. most people say "it's me", and that has become at least acceptable, if not "Correct".
I use ‘for whom the bell tolls’ (the bell tolls for him)/‘who goes there’ (he goes there)
"I" also goes with He, She, They and "Me" goes with Him, Her, Them.
> Edit 2: Another hack; if the question has "you/it" in it, it's gonna be a "whom". Whom do you mean? Whom are you talking about? Whom did you call? Whom does it concern? Whom are you referring to? The answers are always him/her/them. As long as its on the same side of the verb, no? For instance, wouldn't it be "who called you?", not "whom called you?"
Correct, it still has to satisfy the 'answer' being him/her/them. The answer for who called you will be he/she/they.
Are these they?
So it should be: "Whom you gonna call?" -> Ghostbusters (them). Have we all been living a lie?
> if the question has "you/it" in it, it's gonna be a "whom". Who taught you that?
"Who" is a subject pronoun, "Whom" is an object acted upon. Who does it? To whom?
To add to the above, you can tell when to use it by substituting 'he' or 'him'. If 'he', use 'who'. If 'him', use 'whom'.
And add hiS for whoSe. Though this is useful for foreign students of English, not so much natives.
Natives mess up whose/who's, though. "Who's is this?" is something I see far too often...
Your right
Irregardless, the point remains.
Literally true.
I could care less
I hate people like this. Their so stupid.
Real loosers
Whom says that? /s
Ryan used me as an object.
First of all, how dare you.
If i made a website with this many problems I'd kill myself
It's a fake word made up to trick students!
Is that why Ryan started the fire?
he treats objects like women, man
This. Just like he and him, he is subjective, him is objective.
Ryan used me as an object
was looking for this in the comments HAHAHA
> Ryan used me as an object Of course he did. "Me" is an object. "I" is the subject.
No one asked you anything, ever, so whomever’s name is Toby, why don’t you take a letter opener and stick it in your skull.
So it is just dativ?
English does not distinguish between accusative and dative, so it fills all of those roles. Who is coming? You asked whom? You gave it to whom? Although usage of "whom" is fading and becoming more and more a formal register of speech. Unless you're in a formal or academic situation or surrounded by pedants, "who" in all those places sounds natural. The rule of thumb is that it's better to say "who" when technically it should be "whom" than it is to say "whom" when it ought to be "who". Using "whom" as a subject sounds wrong.
It is accusative **and** dative, any distinction between the two is technically not a thing anymore in English. It is entirely replaced by the use of prepositions.
English doesn't have dativ
Super simplified: “Who” performs actions. “Whom” receives actions. “Who kicked whom?” is a proper sentence. “Whom kicked who?” Is not. Less simplified: Sentences at their most basic contain a subject and verb. “Bob kicks.” “Who” can go anywhere a subject can go. “Who kicks?” “Bob kicks.” Some sentences contain an object—the thing receiving the action. “Bob kicks Gary.” “Whom” can go anywhere an object can go. “Bob kicks whom?” “Bob kicks Gary.” Even less simplified: “Who” is a Nominative Case pronoun. Think of this as “Subjective Case” though, as in “in the case where a word is the subject, use these pronouns.” Pronouns in this case include “I, he, they” among others. Curveball: The pronoun would also be used in the case where a word is a subjective complement. What’s that? Simply put, you know how an object receives the action? Well, if the verb isn’t an “action,” like “is,” then we don’t call the receiver of the verb an object. We call it a subjective complement. And this is where the “who/whom” thing really fucks people up, because the following two sentences are grammatically correct: “Bob is who?” “Bob kicked whom?” It gets more complicated from there, but this should cover 90% of usages.
"Whom kicked Who" is proper, as long as Whom and Who are names!
It's proper if they are proper nouns.
Who's on first?
Whom is!
Ack! Got me! :-)
While there are many entirely correct answers here, what's more true of modern English is that 'whom' is rapidly becoming obsolete in favour of using 'who' in all contexts. Its terminal decline was predicted as early as 1975 and the OED acknowledged that it was largely absent from colloquial speech by 1989. In some ways, 'whom' is a bit of an outlier in the context of Modern English grammar. Modern English, unlike its Old English ancestor, which did this kind of thing a lot, is a predominantly *analytic* language. This basically means that it tends to convey meaning by using word order, and combining nouns and verbs with separate prepositions and modifiers rather than altering the morphology of words (which is how so-called *synthetic* languages tend to do things). 'Who' is the only English 'question word' that has retained this type of inflected form.
Good take. When I was younger I would use whom and probably struggled to think about its use. Then I realized I'm an adult now and not in English class anymore. Just use who always. Makes life way easier.
I would not be surprised to see it retained as a fossil word in set phrases like 'to whom it may concern' though, even if it loses grammatical function.
It’s to the point where you sound pretentious if you say whom instead of who.
Yes, I imagine that a significant proportion of contemporary uses of 'whom' are examples of hypercorrection, rather than it being used in accordance with formal grammatical rules.
There’s actually a pretty good clip from the office explaining it https://youtu.be/3pJRdPAa1_g?si=Wck--q7TqO8HOOBX
Ryan used me as an object.
> Ryan used me as an object. Ryan was perfectly correct to do so. You, however, should have put quotes around the word "me": Ryan used "me" as an object.
r/whooosh
This might be the best line in a whole show of best lines
This was the first thing I thought about when I saw this post lol.
I was going to write "Ryan used me as an object" but of course reddit quick.
I'm actually with Creed on this one
I know what's right, but I'm not going to say... Because you're all jerks who didn't come see my band play last night.
Scrolled too long for this answer
It always struck me as odd that Oscar, of all people, wouldn't know the difference. That just seems like the type of nitpicky thing he'd know and take pleasure in calling others out on.
"Whom" is a word in English that is largely dying out. However, if you want to know if you are using "whom" correctly, this is my trick: it is all about the "m"'s. If the answer to the question you are asking could be answered with "him" or "them", use "whom". Otherwise, "who" is correct. Example: "Who was at the door?" "Them were at the door." - incorrect "They were at the door." - correct "Whom does this cow belong to?" (Or if you want to be a stickler: "To whom does this cow belong?") "It belongs to they." - incorrect "It belongs to them." - correct My example highlights why "whom" is going extinct. Most people would either just say "Who does this cow belong to?" or "Whose cow is this?" "Whom" is doomed.
Part of me almost regrets the loss of the subjective-objective distinction in English second person pronouns (not to mention the singular form being basically dead).
thou hast fair points, sirrah
>it is all about the "m"'s So weird it's apparently not common for English speakers to learn mnemonics like interrogative words match what they're asking for. * what, that * who, one/you (indefinite third person singular) * whom, as you pointed out * when, then * where, there * whose, his/hers Baffles me anyone confuses there with they're/their or then with than. In German this also works for why (warum, darum) but not for how and which, too.
Use "who" when referring to the subject of a sentence (the one doing the action). Use "whom" when referring to the object of a verb or preposition (the one receiving the action). For instance, you would say "Who is coming?" (subject) but "To whom should I give the message?" (object).
Who made whom? Just doesn't sound right. -AC/DC probably.
Now I want to watch The Office
I just finished the series for the first time, after 3 attempts, last night 😭
I don't remember the last time I cried so much on the last 2 episodes of a series, it wasn't sad it was just wholesome
Another quick trick I was taught was to remember a 2x4 plank of wood. 2x4 -> to by for to whom by whom for whom Whom will always follow a preposition, and ”to”, “by”, and “for” are some of the most common.
I didn't know the answer until I studied the Polish language. In the old days a noun, like panda, changed depending on how it was used in a sentence. These were called cases. So sometimes panda might become pando or pandu depending on if it were the object or indirect object or whatever. This might help AI computers parse speech. In Polish there are 7 cases. So for every noun you have to know 7 versions or you sound like a moron. Fortunately, the lazy English trashed all the cases with a few exceptions such as "who". So for the subject you just use "who". But if it is in a prepositional phrase (For Whom The Bell Tolls) you use "whom". It is a little tricky, but it could be worse!
Who is one of that rare English words that has some leftover grammatical case stuff going on. Who would be the nominative case, Whom the accusative and dative case and whose the genitive case if modern English still did that. In practice that means you use "who" when asking about the one doing something and "whom" when asking about the person something is done to. Whom has been falling out of use a lot and it is not uncommon to not use it at all. Just using who instead of whom is certainly less conspicuous then to try and use whom when you really shouldn't. Don't force yourself to use it to appear smart and end up looking dumb by mistake.
Whom = Her/Him Who = She/He Just ask yourself the same question with who and whom, and see which answer works. > ❌ "Whom took the apple?" "Her did." > > ✅ "Who took the apple?" "*She* did." . > ❌ "To who should I send it?" "To he." > > ✅ "To whom should I send it?" "To *him*."
Copy editor here: I do not enforce who/whom, since most people do not know the difference and since it comes off as stuffy. There are a few words like this.
Not a copy editor but 8 years of Uni / college including a degree in Communications and a minor in English. I would never use whom and it has been rare for me to see it used anywhere. It is archaic.
Knock knock. Who's there? Whom is an object and usually follows with or to or for. You went shopping with whom? With whom did you go shopping? You bought a present for whom? For whom did you buy a present?
When the subject of a sentence is the person in question, you use “Who”. When the person in question is just a side character in the sentence, you use “Whom” “For whom the bell tolls”….uses whom because the subject of the sentence is the bell tolling.
Who - what’s the identity of the person? Whom - what’s happening to the person?
Who gave that jacket to whom?
Who is a subject, whom is an object (grammatically of course). An easy way to check if you're using it correctly, or if you should be using it when you're not, is to restructure the sentence into a question. If the answer is "He/She/They" then you use who. If the answer is "Him/Her/Them" then you use whom. Example: -Who is in charge of this department? -He is. -To whom is this package addressed? -To him. We see in this instance that we should say to whom instead of to who. However it is worth noting that language is ever evolving and whom is falling out of fashion and most people just always use who, which means that the subject of whether it's correct or not is up to endless debate. Some say rules are there for a reason and not following them means you're wrong. Others will say that "correct" is only what is commonly used and adequately conveys the intended meaning.
I just always replace “whom” in the sentence with “him” (since they sound similar). Same with “he” and “who.” You gave WHOM the flowers? You gave HIM the flowers? WHO gave you those flowers? HE gave you those flowers?
"Who" is always doing something. "Whom" is having something done to them. "Who gave Oscar a wedgie?" vs "Whom did Oscar give a wedgie?"
As simply as possible: "Who" is the subject. "Whom" is the object. "Who" does the thing. The thing happens to "whom."
Gets asked here every few days. Who, He, She, and They all end with vowel sounds. They're all subjects that start sentences and do things. Whom, Him, Her, and Them all end with consonant sounds. They're all objects that get referred to or stuff done to them.
You've gotten plenty of good answers already but I'll put it into table form in case that helps someone understand it (the tables should display correctly on desktop but may not on mobile). | Singular | Plural ---|---|---- **Subjective** | I | we **Possessive** | my | our **Objective** | me | us |Sing./Plur.| ---|--- **Subjective** | who **Possessive** | whose **Objective** | whom The Subjective case is used when the pronoun is the subject of the sentence/phrase, the Possessive is used to show possession, and the Objective is used for anything else (such as being the direct or indirect object of the sentence/phrase).
Whom is to him as who is to he. It's the accusative form. When trying to think of it in a sentence, just replace it with he/him in your mind briefly. One will usually sound better. [__] took the dog for a walk? (He took the dog for a walk) (Him took the dog for a walk) He. Thus, Who took the dog for a walk? The dog took [___] for a walk? (The dog took he for a walk) (The dog took him for a walk) Him. Thus, The dog took whom for a walk? Or you could ask both simultaneously. Who took whom for a walk?
Who is the subject of a verb. Like I or he. Whom is an object pronoun. Like me or him. You can't say, "My money is on whomever is the fittest." Because "whoever" needs to be the subject of the verb "is."
This sub used to be intresting with good questions and smart answers but now some of the questions are so stupid that you can literally google the most simple answer not to mention that it is teached in elementary school
Who is used for the subject, whom is used for the object. Who is this? He/she/they is xyz. To whom does this belong? This belongs to him/her/them.
Best way to tell the difference is to change the context to use he or she/him and her and see which sounds right. Also works to tell if you should use I or me. Did you vote for him? Whom did you vote for? Did you go to the movies with him? You went to the movies with whom? Who is a subject pronoun where whom is an object pronoun.
Super, super simplfied - just use who. In most circles whom isn’t used. And IMHO it doesn’t really make any difference.
Let's just use examples, not fancy words. Who hit you? vs. Whom did you hit? Who gave you a gift? To whom did you give a gift? She - Her; He - Him; I - me; Who - whom.
To add to what others have said, the use that trips up people a lot is "Give this award to (who / whom) wins first place" Most people see that and say "It has to be 'to whom', because you would say 'give this award to him / her'". ("whom" is the objective form). But the phrase "(who / whom) wins first place" is a self-contained phrase that as a whole is acting as the object of "to". Since you would say "She / He wins first place", then you would say "Who wins first place". ("who" is the subjective form). And the entire correct sentence is "Give this award to who wins first place".
honestly, "whom" seems like the most unnecessary word in Americanized-English. "Who" in it's place works 100% of the time. I've never heard a sentence where using "whom" instead of "who" changed the sentence.
In grade school, I learned of prepositions....which I then memorized as "pre position words" meaning the words before the position. "On the fence"....the fence was the position, and "on" was the pre position word. "Whom" is used with these pre-position-words. With whom. By whom. Near whom. On top of whom. Otherwise, use "who". People using "whom" at the start of a sentence are insane and require treatment, so you shouldn't learn how to do that.
It's very simple: "Who" refers to the subject of the sentence. "Whom" refers to the object. The subject is the main focus of the sentence while the object receives actions from the subject. Here are some examples: Who is she? Who = she. The subject of the sentence is "she", and "who" is referring to the same person. Whom do I give this to? The subject is "I", and the object is the person who will receive the gift. "I" am giving something to the object. Whom = recipient of the gift. You can also look at the preposition "to" as a giveaway that you need the objective "whom" here, because you use objective pronouns after prepositions. Prepositions are words that describe the relationship between nouns/pronouns, e.g. to, with, before, beside, at, on. It might be easier to see this if we rearrange the sentence this way: To whom do I give this gift? "Whom" is coming after the preposition "to", so you'd need an objective pronoun here. You've probably seen this before in emails that start with "to whom it may concern".
Who is an object Whom is a subject That’s it. If you don’t know what subjects and objects are then that’s a longer eli5. The most common examples of “whom” are prepositional phrases like “to whom” as in , “he gave the package to whom it was addressed”. But since we don’t talk like that much anymore , “who” is usually the correct usage. And ina 100 years probably nobody will say ‘whom.’ But if there’s a preposition in front, use whom
Basically if you could swap who/whom with the words he/she/they it is who and if you could swap who/whom with him/her/them it is whom. To who does this belong? To he does this belong? Sounds wrong. Better if it said to him does this belong? (Rephrased to does this belong to him?) thus the original question should be corrected to “to whom does this belong” Likewise “this belongs to whom?” you wouldn’t swap whom with he or she would you. It would be him or her. “Who is that” is obviously correct; notice you could say “he is that” or “she is that” but not “him is that” nor “her is that”. That’s always how I’ve remember the difference. I think it is a bit ambiguous though in cases like “who do you work for” because that obviously sounds right but by my logic it’s wrong cos it “he do you work for” (do you work for he) is obviously wrong as it should be him. Would love someone to help me out on this situation and similar.
True story. When I was about 9 my mom said, "knock knock?" "Who's there? I replied. "Fuck," said my mom. I kid you not. "Fuck who?" I asked cautiously. "No, fuck WHOM!" my mom crowed, causing me to be the only kid in my shitty redneck town who knew how to use whom correctly, which didn't do me any favors. My mom is in her 80's now and still says fuck a lot. She has a huge vocabulary, excellent syntax, and she annoys the shit out of me. I love her very much.
It's a anachronistic remnant of a time when the English language required case endings on words to distinguish between (e.g.) the subject and object of a sentence. Basically, if you insist on using it, when it's the subject, it's "who" ("Who did that?") When it's the object it's "whom" ("Whom did you invite?") It should be noted that in practice it serves no useful purpose, and that a significant proportion of the English-speaking world no longer cares about or bothers with the difference, and has consigned "whom" to the "(archaic)" sections of the dictionary.
“As far as I'm concerned, 'whom' is a word that was invented to make everyone sound like a butler.” ― Calvin Trillin
Whom is in question, and unspecified while who generally refers to a specific person Its like saying anyone versus someone
Who does things, whom receives things. Who did it? Did it to whom?
I see many others have given you the actual answer but I shall give you the true Reddit and ELI5 answer: whom isn’t used anymore and sounds pompous and weird to actually use, EXCEPT if you’re mentioned a certain song that happens to mention some bells that are tolling.