Forward (Lithia talking here): While this section is incredibly informative, it will most likely seem confusing to people who never learned direct and indirect objects in sentences. So if you know what those are read on, and if not, I recommend you read WHO/WHO'S/WHOSE/WHOM (SIMPLIFIED VERSION), which will cover who/who's/whose/whom in a slightly less complicated manner.
If you know Latin (or Greek), you won’t have a problem with this—in fact, you probably already know it and don’t even need this.
Most people (and I used to do this too—don’t worry) see “whom” and balk. It looks smart to use it, but when the fudge-cake do we use it? The problem is, using “whom” carries the same prestige as mastering the semicolon: if you get it right, everybody thinks you’re a genius. If you get it wrong, everybody else who doesn’t know how to use it correctly thinks you’re a genius, but those who do know how to use it correctly think you’re an idiot and (here’s a secret for you) don’t take you seriously as writers. It’s that bad. In fact, it’s like using a gargantuan word when you clearly have no idea what it means but it comes up top on the list of MS Word’s wonderful “synonyms” feature.
That’s probably enough introduction to this deadly serious matter. If you’re terrified already, I do apologize. It wasn’t my intention… well, maybe it was, because it means you’ll actually bother to use “who/whose/whom” correctly.
Normally, the problem actually seems to be that people just think: “‘Whom.’ Scary. Ooh, I’m not using that.” They look at it like it’s an unpinned grenade for a few seconds and then flee as fast as they can in the opposite direction. Failing that, they just miss out all forms of “who” whatsoever, or replace it (the safe option) with “that.” The “who/whose/whom” family tree is actually extremely simple.
1. “Who” only ever refers to the subject of the sentence, or the subject of the relative clause.
Example: “Who are you?” “You” is the subject of the sentence, so here, it is correct to use “who.”
Wilhelmina stared at the man who had just killed her father. “The man” is the subject of the relative clause “who had just killed her father,” and, since this is distinguishing this particular man as opposed to all the other gents in the world as the killer, it doesn’t need to be subordinated.
Felicity hit Bob, who had just bitten her. Without discussing the fact that Bob might just have rabies, “who” is, again, referring to the subject of the relative clause: Bob. Who bit Felicity? Bob. Got that? Good.
Now, how to get 1. drastically wrong:
Example: So you’re the person who Sandy was telling me about. Wrong! Sandy is the subject of the relative clause, and “you” is the object, so “who” ought to be “whom” to agree with that (it declines, see?).
Who is Ben speaking to? Wrong! Ben is the subject of the sentence. Anything else must therefore be the object, and so the “who” must be as well—which means it ought to be “whom.” In any case, “to whom” is dative (to whom am I speaking?), and so the “whom” form has to be used anyway.
Joanna looked at the dog who was swimming in the lake. Wrong! “Who” is a relative pronoun used only to refer to people, or, if you’re writing an animal story or something where some other species replaces humans, personified objects/creatures. Non-human things adopt the relative pronoun “which.” Thus, this sentence ought correctly to be: “Johanna looked at the dog which was swimming in the lake.”
2. “Whose” is possessive.
Example: “Whose bag is this?” It’s somebody’s bag.
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Writing Mistakes You're Making
DiversosA self-help book for beginning writers, covering everything from grammar to plot with a dash of humor to keep you interested and learning! (The best part? Anything you already know, you can just skip over.)
