18."Halt! Whom Goes There?" Pronoun Case, Continued. English Grammar Lesson

Your anxiety about the choice between "who" and "whom" is laid to rest by Yossarian the Grammarian.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• grammer
• english
• interrogative
• pronoun
• sandor
• writing
• proper
• correct
• nominative
• accusative
• language
• humanities

[everfox1]

wow, this was really useful, nonetheless, I still have a question: I can both say

The man whom I know has left

The man I know has left

are they right?

[mrthoth]

@everfox1 Both are acceptable. If you're dealing with the beginning of a relative clause (a clause that functions as an adjective), you can leave out the "who" or "whom" and avoid the whole problem. However, if you're dealing with a clause or phrase that functions as a noun, you can't do that--can't leave the "whom", e.g., out of "I don't know whom to invite."

[Ubadidoo]

Does it mean that relative pronoun has to appear immediately after the noun (pronoun) which it refers to ?

[mrthoth]

@Ubadidoo No, things can intervene between a noun and the relative pronoun. For example, in "I bought a ham in New York that cost me eighty dollars," "in New York" comes between "ham" and the relative pronoun ("that") that refers to it.

[flaze3]

What about 'you know who did it'? We could substitute 'you know HE did it' as 'who' is in the nominative case. There are then two subjects. Is that permissible?

To say 'you know whom did it' sounds vaguerly acceptable, but 'you know him did it' strikes me as being flat out wrong.

[mrthoth]

@flaze3 "You know who did it" is not comparable to "You know he did it," and doesn't help us determine the proper case in "You know who did it." The latter really means "You know that he did it." To see the difference between the sentences consider that one might say, "You know who did it: Gabor." But one couldn't say, "You know [that] he did it: Gabor." The test sentences for the "who" in "you know who did it" should be "he did it" and "him did it." "He did it" wins, so it's "who".

[pandagopal]

@everfox1 I am very week in English for last 3 years i am trying to learn Grammar, this is the most awesome video i have ever watched, i learnt Verb from this tutorial, which i was always the cause of not to move ahead with Grammar. Thank you so much.

[llewohnewo]

@everfox1

NOTE that the object of the relative clause can refer to the subject of the dependent clause, eg.

The man is the person (subject of "is") ......whom (object in this clause) I spoke to.

So:

He is the man...who cut my lawn. (no omission possible).

He is the man (whom) I know. (omission possible)

Or better still: just go with your instincts since these "rules" are just ad hoc ways of explaining what people actually say (or more accurately, what the "educated" classes deem"correct")

[llewohnewo]

@everfox1

@everfox1

Yes, you can always omit the object relative pronoun (object complement) when it is the object in a relative clause.

subject relative pronoun=who

object relative pronoun=whom

Dependent clause= The man...

Relative clause starting with subject of relative clause= ...who spoke.

Relative clause starting with object of relative clause=...whom I spoke to.

[llewohnewo]

This same point can be made far more succinctly:

1) Establish what an object and a subject are (generally, though not strictly, an agent and a recipient of an verb respectively).

2) Explain that one is a subject and the other an object.

Why still use the undescriptive idea of cases, unlessyou are a linguist? This can be done with simpler terminology. Anyway,good writers don't need to be fully aware of these since, unlike German, articles do not have different case-dependent declensions.

[llewohnewo]

The only time I ever use "whom"is when following a preposition eg. "to whom" just because "to who" sounds plainly ridiculous, and here, only in writing.

[llewohnewo]

I think we can now safely dispose of "whom" as an object pronoun in all but the most formal texts and, even then, I wish it would die away just like "ye" ( consider that "ye" used to be the correct informal plural of "you" and its replacement must at one time have been considered correct. Also, the correct past subjunctive form "were"is frequently replaced by "was" and in some cases sounds rather jarring even though considered grammatically correct.

[llewohnewo]

English textbooks for foreigners teach that "who" can acceptably be used as an object relative pronoun, particularly as, in Britain at least, the use of "whom" in spoken English sounds extremely affected and even pompous.

[bored1980]

Whoah boy. And I thought the Slovak language was difficult!