Who or Whom? That is the question!

Question

How do you know when to use "who" and when to use "whom"? Does it matter? It certainly does.

Answer 1

This is an easy one to learn once you know one basic fact about the sentence.

Use who when the person is *doing* the action.

Example: I know a friend who will always help other people.

The "who" is the one who will do the helping.

Use whom when the person is receiving the action.

Example: They are the sad people whom nobody helped.

The "whom" are those who did not receive help from others.

Try writing a few sentences of your own with each one and soon you will understand it and never have any trouble with it again.

Here are two sample sentences to try on your own. Place who or whom in the space.

1. Anyone __________ the coronavirus has attacked needs to get help soon.
2. The best place to go if the coronavirus attacks you is someone _________

has experience treating it.

Answer 2

Great question! I used to get these two mixed up as well, until I got some helpful advice from a college professor. Check out the video!

Answer 3

A helpful way to keep it straight is that you would use "whom" anywhere you would use "him." They both helpfully have the ending -m! Some examples to illustrate:

Whom do I have the pleasure of meeting?

I have the pleasure of meeting him.

The book was written by whom?

The book was written by him.

"Whom" is used for instances where you would use a direct/indirect object or object of the preposition. Fun fact: the final -m is a holdover from inflected languages like Latin which had an objective case (get it? object-ive?) that usually ended in -m.