Two weeks ago Forum member Michael Galario asked me: “Which of these two sentence constructions is correct: ‘The person
who you want to speak with is ____’ or ‘The person
whom you want to speak with is ____’? I am aware of the rules; however, I got confused by the two sentence structures. My instinct tells me that I should use ‘whom,’ but there’s like another side of me that’s in doubt.”
I replied to Mike that the answers to his questions about the “who”/“whom” usage conundrum are rather complicated and couldn’t be given justice by a quick, off-the-cuff explanation. I assured him though that my definitive reply would be forthcoming and expressed the hope that he would find it worth the wait.
Now I’m ready with my answer and to begin with, I’d like to dissect the “who”/“whom” conundrum by going right back to this basic rule of thumb:
Use “who” when it refers to the subject of the sentence, but use “whom” when it refers to the object of the verb or the object of the preposition.
IMAGE CREDIT: 7ESL.COMThe
subject of a sentence is, of course, something concerning which something is said or done, as in “
Who will win in this contentious argument is still anybody’s guess” and “
Who will accompany you during your trip to Japan?” The
object of the verb is the entity that’s acted upon by the subject or receives the action of the verb, as in “The manager still doesn’t know
whom to trust between the two highly qualified job applicants.” And the
object of the preposition is a noun, noun phrase, or pronoun that follows a preposition and completes its meaning, as in “The woman’s purse was snatched by
the thief in broad daylight” (noun or noun phrase as object of the preposition “by”) and this classic line of verse by John Donne, “For
whom the bells toll, it tolls for thee” (pronoun “whom” as object of the preposition “for”).
The very important thing to remember—and this is worth memorizing for good measure—is that “whom” is the the objective case of “who,” which means that when “who” is used as the object of a preposition, it should change its form to “whom.”
Now we are in a much better position to answer which is acceptable between these two sentence constructions that confused and bothered Mike Galario: “The person
who you want to speak with is me” or “The person
whom you want to speak with is me.” (Simply to make the sense clearer, I used the specific “me” instead of the original blank Mike provided for the object.)
Offhand, I must say that while those two sentence constructions might be defensible grammatically, they are ill-advised by contemporary standards because both sound too formal, stilted, and stuffy. The first construction using “who” is particularly iffy semantically and false-sounding, so I gravitate towards the second construction using the objective “whom” even if I find also problematic structurally.
Having said that, I’m taking note at this point that in their usage guides for “who” and “whom,” the
American Heritage Dictionary and
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary are unanimous in their assessment of “whom” as a highly problematic personal pronoun, and they provide numerous techniques for avoiding its use or for using it in undebatable reconstructions that don’t alter the statement’s intended tonality or language register.
The reconstruction that I personally recommend is this simple rearrangement of the grammatical elements of the sentence using “whom”: “The person
with whom you want to speak is me.” This time, with the preposition “with” coming right before “whom,” the sentence becomes virtually unassailable not only because it sounds right but also because it’s crystal clear that “whom” refers to the object of the preposition “with.”
(Next:
Is “Philippines” plural and what is its possessive form?) November 28, 2019
This essay, 1,171st of the series, appeared in the column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in the Campus Press section of the November 21, 2019 print edition of The Manila Times
, © 2019 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.IMPORTANT RELATED READING:Avoidance options for the pesky “who” vs. “whom” conundrum
