What is the general rule of thumb on when to use who or whom?

Question

I thought there was some kind of easy way to determine when a person should say who or whom.

Answer 1

In the sentence, try answering the "who" or "whom" question with "he" or "him" "He" will fit where you should use "who." "Him" will fit where you should use "whom."

For example, "Who is going with us?" would be "He is going with us."

"For whom does the bell toll?" "It tolls for him."

Answer 2

Going by general grammar sense..'who' is used when the voice of the sentence is active..while whom is used when the sentence has a passive voice..An example of an active voice : A killed B
Passive Voice: B was killed BY A...'BY' changes the voice of a sentence from active to passive

Answer 3

Very simple rules of thumb are nice, and some insist on them, but real spoken language may refuse to follow them!

Originally it was a simple matter of "use 'who' when the word is the subject of the sentence (or clause), 'whom' when the word is an object".

But that's not quite the case anymore [pun intended]. In REAL spoken English the basic rule is now "Use 'who', EXCEPT right after a preposition ("for whom...?" but "who is it for?")"


A little explanation:

Notice that according to the original rule you SHOULD say both "Whom is this for?" But almost noone would say that! On the other hand, people often DO follow the rule when they say "To whom should I address the letter?"

The problem is that Modern English, unlike Old English and many other languages (including Latin) makes VERY little use of case endings to distinguish the role a noun or pronoun plays in a sentence (word order is far more critical). The only instance where we change the form according to case is several of the personal pronouns ("I/he/she/we/they" for subject, "me/him/her/us/them" for object). As for relative pronouns, "which" uses the same form for subject or object. That leaves "who-m" as the ONE that stands somewhere in the middle. Hence the confusion.

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You can skip this part if you like, but you may find it useful for understanding other questions (like why we say "It's ME" not "It's I").

The other side of this great limitation in the use of CASE is that syntax, especially WORD ORDER, becomes critical Latin might change the order of words all around, yet say exactly the same thing.. and you are not confused because the CASE endings tell you the role of the words. But you cannot do that in English --changing the order of words makes a big diference!

Simple example: "The dog bit the man" is NOT the same as "The man bit the dog" --and the difference is effected ONLY by changing the word order

Notice that in "The dog bit the man" the order is Subject-Veb-Object ("SVO"). This is the basic order for English sentences and clauses, and what we usually expect to see. So we apply it to many simple constructions. We are following this ORDER in the simple setences:

"Who did you speak to?" [formal usage: "Whom did you speak to?" or better "To whom did you speak?"]

"It was me." [formal demands: "It was I."]

"Who" in "Who is this?" falls in the "subject slot" (according to the common "SVO" pattern), and so ends up using the "subject form" that is 'who' rather than 'whom'. And the "me" of "It's me" falls in the "object slot", so uses the "object form". Grammarians trying to make English follow LATIN rules of case may object, but English is NOT Latin, and refuses to be pushed into the Latin model.

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So, how do we decide when to use "who" and "whom"?

Again. I do NOT agree on the simple "substitution" rule. It is useful for distinguishing "you and I" (subject) from "you and me" (object), and it may be "formally" correct for who/whom, but thanks to the minimizing of case forms in English, scarcely anyone actually SPEAKS that way (and if they do, they get odd looks!) In fact, I sincerely doubt that those who have given you this sort of answer even try to follow it consistently.

Incidentally, note here that I'm focusing mainly on IN-formal use, that is, everyday speech. And we must remember that when informal differs from formal that does NOT mean the informal use is "wrong"! (Nor is it "uneducated" or "slang".) It's simply different! (And, as I noted above, it is based on a basic feature of English, viz., the importance of word order.)

So here is my basic rule of thumb, which is based on normal English WORD ORDER. For normal, informal use, that is, outside of formal writing (where someone demands it of you!):

Feel free to use "who" in ALL instances --whether as subject or object-- EXCEPT when you the word falls IMMEDIATELY after a preposition (where by definition it cannot be the subject). In that instance use "whom". Thus we say "TO whoM it may concern", "WITH whoM are you speaking?", "FOR whoM the bell tolls". But when the preposition is moved we say things like "who are you speaking with?". Of course, most English speakers simply avoid the preceding preposition as much as possible, since it too sounds "stuffy".

Answer 4

if you can replace a word with "he" or "she," then it is the subject of the sentence and you should use "who." If you can replace the word with "him" or "her," it is the object and you should use "whom."

Answer 5

Depends how you use it in a sentence...........