Who versus whom | The parts of speech | Grammar

- [Voiceover] Hello grammarians.

Welcome to one the thorniest
fights in English usage today.

The question of whether
or not you should use

who or whom in a sentence
as a relative pronoun.

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

and whom is the object form.

Which means that if we're talking about

someone who is the doer, then we say who.

As in, the spy who loved me.

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

As in, the spy whom I loved.

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

And in this sentence, I is the subject.

Me is the object.

And whom is the object.

I loved whom?

In this sentence, I am doing the loving.

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

That's the basic rule.

But, this does not adequately reflect

the way our culture actually uses

and has used whom or who for some time.

In many cases it has become permissible

to use who as an object.

Let me show you what I mean.

So the thing to remember

is that the basic rule
is a one way street.

Because the way language is changing,

whom is on its way out.

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

Is that sad?

Sure, a little bit.

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

As in, whoso pulleth this
sword from this stone,

is rightwise born king of England.

We don't use that anymore.

It's old fashioned.

Now we say, whoever.

And that's ok.

So we know that the basic rule

is that you use who as a subject

and whom as an object.

Well you can also now
use who as an object.

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

That's the thing you need to remember,

is that whom's use is not expanding.

It is contracting.

Who is taking over some of whom's duties.

So let's go back to that spy example.

So here are the four
possible options, right?

The spy who loved me,

the spy whom loved me,

the spy who I loved,

and the spy whom I loved.

Now of these, only this one is incorrect.

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

But here, the spy who I loved,

where who is being an object,

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

Either of these is fine.

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

The spy whom loved me.

Because this language change
is going in one direction.

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

So whom never expands from
its original position.

Who does.

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

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

and whether or not this pronoun here

should be who or whom,

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

Because both possibilies
are equally understandable.

Yes, technically if you
wanted to be very correct

you would say whom are you talking to,

or you are talking to whom,

because whom is the object
of this preposition.

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

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

when you put the to at the end,

and the whom question
particle at the beginning,

this m just kind of falls away.

Cause we're more likely to use whom

when it's immediately
preceded by a preposition.

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

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

who are you talking to.

It's not technically correct,

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

You are talking to who

is a little bit more
formal of a construction,

and therefore you would
probably want to use whom.

Saying you are talking
to who is not as common.

So in this wild swamp of rule breaking

there is one hard grammar
rule to pay attention to.

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

The role of whom in our
constellation of pronouns

is decreasing, not expanding.

Who is taking over whom.

And since who is the subject,

whom is not moving into that space.

Whom is the object pronoun,

and you use it when you're feeling fancy.

You can learn anything.

David out.