Improve English grammar – usage of ‘Who’ and ‘Whom’

Both native and non-native English speakers find it equally difficult to differentiate between ‘who’ and ‘whom’ and end up interchanging the words. ‘Who’ is preferred in colloquial English as it sounds more casual than ‘whom’ which sounds a bit too formal.

Syntax

Before you know the usage, you need to understand the sentence structure which is also called SYNTAX. It is defined as the correct grammatical arrangement of words in sentences. The simplest syntax contains a subject (s), verb (v) and an object (o).

Subject is the person or thing that is doing the action. The action is described by the verb. The verb’s form describes the tense. The subject does an action on an object. This object can be a thing or a person.

Example:

Sentence	Subject, verb, object	Syntax
Who broke the glass?	Who – Subjectbroke – Verbthe glass – object	Subject Verb Object

Our mind is trained to think in a language we feel the most comfortable with. So when you have to speak in English, you tend to translate the sentence from Hindi or Kannada to English and thereby, change the syntax as well. This must be avoided at all costs.

‘Who’ usage

‘Who’ is a subject pronoun. This means, ‘who’ is always the doer of an action in a sentence. You can answer ‘who’ with I, you, he, she, we, they, it and whoever in a sentence.

Who broke the glass? – I/you/he/she/we/they/it/whoever broke the glass.

Determining the correct ‘who’ usage

I would like to meet the person who/whom made this painting.

The painting is the object which has been made by the subject. And ‘who’ is always the subject in a sentence. So, the correct sentence is ‘I would like to meet the person who made this painting.’

‘Whom’ usage

‘Whom’ is the ‘object’ form of ‘Who’. This means, ‘whom’ always receives an action. A preposition is added before ‘whom’ to give meaning to the object. ‘Whom’ can be answered by me, us, you, him, her, it, them and whomever.

To whom were you talking?

I know the people whom he has invited.

Determining the correct ‘whom’ usage

Those of you for whom/who the mail has arrived, please stand in a queue.

The mail has been sent to the person here. This means the person is receiving the action. And the receiver is always ‘whom’.

I know the people whom/who he has invited.

He has invited few people and the people are the receivers of the action. Hence, it should be ‘whom’.

A combined usage: That is the group of people who were going for a trek, whom we met on our way.

There is plenty of confusion and debate, even among learned literary scholars on the correct usage of ‘who/whom’. For our understanding, here is a simple tip to get it right.

Try and replace the word with he or him (she or her). He/she is the equivalent of who and him/her the equivalent of whom.

For example, in the following sentences:

1. Who/Whom should I go to to for English training?

Answer this sentence in your mind trying to use he/she or him/her. Is it I should go to him/her or I should go to he/she? You can see that the him/her answer is clearly better. So, the correct usage in the sentence above will be whom.

2. I am going out with the girl who/whom I met yesterday.

Is it I am going out with her or I am going out with she? Of course, it’s the former. So whom is correct.

Got it? Now use it correctly whenever you get the chance!

References:

A beginner’s guide to Who and Whom:

http://homeworktips.about.com/od/homeworkhelp/a/whom.htm