Antecedents Matter

Let’s start with some rules

• An antecedent is a word toward the front of a sentence that a word farther along in the sentence (called the proform) refers to.
• Antecedents and proforms have to agree, which means they have the same grammatical form (both have to be singular or both plural, for example.)
• “Who” refers to people, “that” refers to non-people

Here are two examples, both from this article:

This news organization sat down with Crandall at Attivo’s headquarters to discuss the company’s work for customers, which include consumer-goods companies, tech firms, law offices, and government agencies.

Okay, is it the comany’s work or the company’s customers that’s included? It’s the customers! Even besides the list making sense as a list of customers, both “customers” and the proform, “include” are plural. So the grammar tells you, too.

There is this very advanced set of attackers that will use all sorts of social engineering to figure out how to get around the security systems.

“That” goes with non-humans, right? And attackers are human, right? So it should be “who will use etc.” right? But “set” is a math term, right? Non-human, right? Well… the context indicates that this is a set of humans, so I think “who” is still appropriate. (And “will use” can be either singular or plural, so that’s no help.) But that’s the editor in me.

What does the editor in you say?

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First, look at the comic. It’s the second speech bubble.

First, a rule:

Who is some kind of a subject
Whom is some kind of an object.

Is the word a subject or an object? How else might you say that sentence?

• You could say, “Who are ‘they’?” That would make the word a subject, so “who,” not “whom.”
• You could say, “They are who(m)?” Since the verb is a form of “to be,” the word is a predicate nominative, so we still get “who” not “whom.”
• Maybe look for an antecedent, which would be in the speech bubble in the upper right. That has “they’re doing,” short for “they are doing.” Still a subject, so we’re still stuck with “who,” not “whom.”

The gal in the glasses is incorrect, using a pretentiousism. Maybe she takes after her mom, who also makes lots of mistakes.

Changing the subject is a common defense mechanism, I think.

The kid is right about the grammar, though. “Whom” is the object of a preposition.

The last post featured a comic about politics. This comic appeared on the same page as one in the last post, and it’s also about politics, but I’m all about the grammar, and this time the guy gets it wrong:

It should be “Whom do you have?” But you probably know that by now. (“You” is the subject; the object should be “whom.”)

I wonder whether the solecism was part of the commentary. Oops. I don’t make political statements.

A lightweight post today (after all, I mention this feature of English grammar rather often). Actually it’s whomever. But it’s correct!

You could even say the “whomever” is correct for two reasons:

1. The noun clause “whomever she wants” is the direct object of the main verb, “can date.”
2. “Whomever” itself is the direct object of the noun clause’s verb, “wants.”

The second reason is the real reason, by the way.

Why is the second reason the real one? The rule is this: you go from the inside out. Rule 2 describes what’s going on inside the clause, which is inside the sentence. 

Here’s a sentence with similar construction that uses “who” to begin a noun clause that’s a direct object, and it’s correct:

Detailed new risk maps show who should really flee a threatening storm.

Scientific American Oct 2018, page 1

“Who” is the subject of the verb “should flee,” inside the noun clause. The noun clause is the direct object of “show.”