A Tricky Who-Whom Construction
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.
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Who, Maybe Whom
“Who” appears in all three panels. Are they correct?
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”:
A Who-Whom Test
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?
Come on, you can do it!
When to Use Who or Whom
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
Different Points of View
This struck me as a good illustration of having different points of view about the same topic. Not a lot else to say.
—Except to point out that the English teacher gets “whom” correct.
How do you feel about rainbows?
