Who vs.

Whom

OE 106
 Who and Whom
 These pronouns are both
interrogative pronouns
(used in asking questions)
and relative pronouns
(used to refer to a noun in the
main clause).
 Who is going? (Interrogative.)
 Mr. Sears is the one who is going.
(Relative, referring to one.)
 Who is the Subjective Form
 Use who whenever he, she, they, I, or we could
be substituted in the who clause.
Who is arranging the
teleconference?
(She is arranging the
teleconference.)
Whoever wins the primary will win the election.
(He wins the primary.)
 WHO
► Who is a SUBJECT pronoun.
► It can ONLY be used in the SUBJECT spot in
a sentence.
► Who is coming to dinner?
► Notice that “who” can be replaced by
another subject pronoun….like “he”
 Examples
► Itwas Thomas Jefferson who was the third
president of the United States.
► Say to yourself..”he was president” He is a
subject pronoun. You would never (I hope)
say “Him was president”
► Who called so late last night?
► Who is the subject doing the calling
 Well…what about whom then?
► WHOM is always, always, always the
OBJECT
► OBJECT of the sentence or OBJECT of a
preposition
► Remember OBJECTS receive the action of
the sentence.
 Whom is the Objective Form
 Use whom whenever him, her,
them, me, or us could be
substituted as the object of the verb
or as the object of a preposition in
the whom clause.
 Whom did you squash today? (You
did squash him today.)
 I will hire whomever I can find. (I
can find him.)
 More sentences with WHOM
► Whom are you calling a wimp?
► Whom do you sit near in Ms. Lormeau’s
fabulous English class?
► Whom are you texting?
► I would like to dedicate this lesson to
whomever loves WHOM as much as I do!
► Whom can we turn to for help?
 Your Turn
► Jones is the guy (who/ whom) I went to a
concert with last week.
► (Who/Whom) is that masked man?
► I always buy candy from (whoever/
whomever) asks me first.
► Ask (whoever/ whomever) read that book to
answer the question.