Who or Whom? Who Knows? Whom Should We Ask?

I'm here to help, because this is the one everyone worries about. Or, if you're being picky, "the one about which everyone worries." And that brings up That vs. Which, which is a whole nother thang. 


We'll worry about it later.


You use who as the subject and whom when you would use an object. Easy enough, right? Except that few of us think in terms of "subject" and "object," so it's really not any help at all, is it? Instead, think of "he" and "him." Use "who" when you would use "he," and "whom" when you would use "him" (and if you're unsure about those, go back and read yesterday's mini rant):


Who went to the store? (He went to the store.)
To whom are you giving the pink slip? (You're giving the pink slip to him.)


This will get you through most of cases that might cause confusion, but there's still one biggie that plagues most of us:  which one do you use after a preposition? To wit: 


Give the good news to whoever/whomever you want.
Give the good news to whoever/whomever needs it.


In the first, you would use "whomever," and in the second, "whoever." The way you determine this is to determine the function of who/whom in its clause: if it's the subject--"whoever needs it"--use who/whoever. If it's the object--"whomever you want"--it's whom/whomever.


To whom did she give the good news?
Who needed the good news?


The fabulous Little, Brown Handbook (not because it's either little or brown, but because it was first published by Little, Brown and Company--at least that's what I think, that they first published it. It gets confusing in there when you're trying to figure out which companies became which other companies) offers this test, which I'm going to include here for you:


A test for who vs. whom in questions--
1. Pose the question:
  (Who, Whom) makes that decision?
  (Who, Whom) does one ask?
2. Answer the question, using a personal pronoun. Choose the pronoun that sounds correct, and note its case.
  (She, Her) makes that decision. She makes that decision (Subjective)
  One asks (she, her). One asks her (Objective)
3. Use the same case (who or whom) in the question.
  Who makes that decision? (Subjective)
  Whom does one ask (Objective)


Perhaps you're beginning to see that you reallyreallyreally need to understand subjects and objects, subjective pronouns and objective ones. It's not nearly as tough as you might think:  subjects are the things doing the action, being the main guy in the sentence--however you need to think of it. They are the subject. The verb agrees with the subject. The object is the thing receiving the action, having something done to it. 


The bat hits the ball. 


The bat is the subject; it's doing the hitting. It's singular, so it gets a singular verb: "hits." The ball is the object--it's on the receiving end. Of course things can be a lot more complicated and convoluted, but that's the basic structure, and once you begin to think about things in terms of subject and object, things that once seemed confusing begin to fall into place. Think of the terms "subject" and "object" this way:  we all want to be the subject of things, the main thing, the big guy, the topic of conversation. We want to be the subject. No one wants to be the object, the thing having stuff done to it. Hence the idea of "He treats women like objects." Right? So remember that sentence, and remember that being an object means having stuff done to you, and that means receiving the action, not doing it.


Does that help?


The best way to learn sentence structure? Take a foreign language. I learned most of this stuff as an adult in college in my first Spanish course. I didn't learn it in German, and I didn't learn it in English. I didn't learn it in German because I hated German and didn't study. I didn't learn it in English because I learned how to talk and write from my mother, who didn't explain the technical terms but made sure my writing and speech were correct, often more accurate than that of my various English teachers. Yeah, I was one of those kids who answered the phone and said, "This is she." Well, except when grammar conflicted with safety, and then I said, instead, "May I ask who's calling, please?" Using "who" because, of course, it's the subject of the clause, "who's calling."


The truth:  grammar isn't nearly as difficult as grammar snobs want you to believe. Like everything else, it can be explained simply and logically. The problem is twofold: 1) most people don't really understand usage but rely on rules they learned and so can't really explain it, and 2) true grammar snobs don't really want everyone else to be able to speak and write well because then they wouldn't have that to be snobbish about. If the hoi polloi speak and write flawlessly, how will we be able to identify them and shun them? They would be able to walk among us, undetected. The horror!


OK. Questions?