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- [Voiceover] Hello grammarians.

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Welcome to one the thorniest
fights in English usage today.

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The question of whether
or not you should use

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who or whom in a sentence
as a relative pronoun.

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So there's this basic idea
that who is the subject form,

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and whom is the object form.

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Which means that if we're talking about

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someone who is the doer, then we say who.

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As in, the spy who loved me.

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As opposed to someone who
is the doee, the object.

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As in, the spy whom I loved.

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You see, cause in this
sentence, who is the subject.

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And in this sentence, I is the subject.

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Me is the object.

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And whom is the object.

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I loved whom?

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In this sentence, I am doing the loving.

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In this sentence it is the
spy who is doing the loving.

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That's the basic rule.

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But, this does not adequately reflect

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the way our culture actually uses

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and has used whom or who for some time.

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In many cases it has become permissible

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to use who as an object.

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Let me show you what I mean.

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So the thing to remember

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is that the basic rule
is a one way street.

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Because the way language is changing,

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whom is on its way out.

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I imagine in another 50, 75
years we won't be using it all.

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Is that sad?

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Sure, a little bit.

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I mean I'm sad that nobody
every uses the pronoun whoso.

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As in, whoso pulleth this
sword from this stone,

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is rightwise born king of England.

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We don't use that anymore.

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It's old fashioned.

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Now we say, whoever.

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And that's ok.

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So we know that the basic rule

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is that you use who as a subject

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and whom as an object.

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Well you can also now
use who as an object.

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The only thing you can't do
is whom is not a subject.

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That's the thing you need to remember,

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is that whom's use is not expanding.

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It is contracting.

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Who is taking over some of whom's duties.

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So let's go back to that spy example.

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So here are the four
possible options, right?

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The spy who loved me,

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the spy whom loved me,

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the spy who I loved,

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and the spy whom I loved.

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Now of these, only this one is incorrect.

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Because we're trying to
use whom as a subject.

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But here, the spy who I loved,

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where who is being an object,

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by the informal rules of our
grammar today, this is fine.

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Either of these is fine.

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The only one that's not
fine is this guy right here.

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The spy whom loved me.

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Because this language change
is going in one direction.

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And it's in the direction of
whom being used less often.

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So whom never expands from
its original position.

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Who does.

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So the next time you're
puzzling over what to do

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in the event of the sentence
who are you talking to,

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and whether or not this pronoun here

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should be who or whom,

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it's really an issue of tone
rather than correctness.

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Because both possibilies
are equally understandable.

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Yes, technically if you
wanted to be very correct

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you would say whom are you talking to,

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or you are talking to whom,

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because whom is the object
of this preposition.

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It's to whom, and so therefore
we would use the object form.

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But you find that when you
separate it out in this question,

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when you put the to at the end,

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and the whom question
particle at the beginning,

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this m just kind of falls away.

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Cause we're more likely to use whom

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when it's immediately
preceded by a preposition.

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But otherwise, it's probably
more likely gonna be who.

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Which is why it's not
that big of a deal to say

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who are you talking to.

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It's not technically correct,

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but it's been used for
so long that it's fine.

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You are talking to who

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is a little bit more
formal of a construction,

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and therefore you would
probably want to use whom.

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Saying you are talking
to who is not as common.

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So in this wild swamp of rule breaking

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there is one hard grammar
rule to pay attention to.

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And it's just never use whom as a subject.

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The role of whom in our
constellation of pronouns

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is decreasing, not expanding.

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Who is taking over whom.

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And since who is the subject,

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whom is not moving into that space.

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Whom is the object pronoun,

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and you use it when you're feeling fancy.

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You can learn anything.

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David out.