A Tricky Who-Whom Construction

rogersgeorge on July 22nd, 2023

Here’s the sentence, from a guy I read regularly:

This isn’t about Suzi, but her predecessor, Vaska, a Rhodesian ridgeback who was very good on leash but would nearly tear my arm from its socket if he spotted the letter carrier, who he knew carried doggy cookies.

Toward the end: “who he [the dog] knew carried doggie cookies.”

Shouldn’t that be “whom” before “he knew”? He knew him, right?

Nope!

The rule is you go from the inside out. The dog knew he carried doggie cookies. “Who” is the subject of the subordiante clause, “who carried doggie cookies,” and he is the subject of the main clause, “he knew.”

Tricky tricky. Don’t let the word order fool you!

Here’s a slightly related comic from that essay because I like to have pictures in my posts.

Subscribe to this blog's RSS feed

Who, Maybe Whom

rogersgeorge on July 10th, 2023

“Who” appears in all three panels. Are they correct?

https://www.gocomics.com/mike-du-jour/2023/06/05

Ready for the answers?

Panel 1: correct. “who” is the subject of the clause, which is nominative, so “who.”

Panel 2: incorrect! The object of a preposition (“to”) should be in the objective case, so “whom.”

Panel 3: correct. “who” is a predicate nominative (after “that is”), so “who.”

So how did you do?

PS—I found another example of a wrong “whom.” Second panel. The “whomever” is the subject of the sentence, so it should be “whoever”:

That or Who?

rogersgeorge on November 26th, 2022

I think I mentioned in the past that “who” is for referring to people, and “that” is for referring to things. Lots of people use “that” for both. Don’t!

Here’s a good example of why that makes a difference.

One of the five Finnish government parties is digging its heels in over new legislation for indigenous people that would enshrine their rights in Finnish law.

  • “That” refers to “legislation”
  • “Who” refers to indigenous people.

Since “People” is closer to the word, you might be inclined to think it refers to the people.

So who does the enshrining? The people or the legislation?

Here’s the picture that goes with the headline:

A Who-Whom Test

rogersgeorge on October 26th, 2022

After the lesson on correct use of “who” and “whom” two posts ago, this jumped out at me. Last panel. Is he correct or not?

https://www.gocomics.com/overboard/2022/10/21

Come on, you can do it!

When to Use Who or Whom

rogersgeorge on October 20th, 2022

I mentioned this topic in the past, but I feel a lack of energy, and besides, I ran into an excellent essay on the topic that I thought I’d share with you. It’s from a site called The Oatmeal by Matthew Inman. Part way down he mentioned a tip that I have mentioned in the past, too.

If you’re not sure whether to use “who” or “whom,” replace the word with “he” or “him.” If “he” fits better, use “who. If “him” sounds better, use “whom.”

Here’s the link. Go read it. He even has a poster of the essay that you can post on your classroom wall.

https://theoatmeal.com/comics/who_vs_whom

To get your interest, here’s a picture from the essay:

Okay, go read it. https://theoatmeal.com/comics/who_vs_whom