Who and Whom

[talkintree]

Do you ever use the word 'whom'? I never have until now.
I always used to ask, "Who did you speak to?" or "Who was that letter for?"
In class the other day I realized that in both those situations I should use the word 'whom'

"To Whom did you speak?" (answer:.. I spoke to HIM.)
"Who did you speak to?" would answer "I spoke to HE." That doesn't make sense.

Same with this sentence:
"Who was that addressed to?" (answer..It was for HE)<--WRONG
"To Whom was the letter addressed?" (answer..It was addressed to HIM)


Also, a person should never finish a sentence with "to"
"Where did you go to?" Should just be ""Where did you go?"

Interesting.... isn't it?  

[Fatal Hilarity]

Very interesting. I was never really sure when "whom" should be used, so now I know. smile It does make a lot of sense.  

[Aramethea]

Very informative, thank you! I've been using whom quite a bit lately - the guild is having an effect...  

[Sola Catella]

They're just different cases of the same word. Who is nominative and should only be used for the subject or the predicate nominative of the sentence. Whom should be used everywhere else.  

[Ame Yuki Kaze]

Sola Catella

They're just different cases of the same word. Who is nominative and should only be used for the subject or the predicate nominative of the sentence. Whom should be used everywhere else.

Huh? question  

[Confused Cotton Socks]

Yami no Hitokiri

Sola Catella

They're just different cases of the same word. Who is nominative and should only be used for the subject or the predicate nominative of the sentence. Whom should be used everywhere else.

Huh? question

It's kind of like "he" and "him." wink  

[Orson Welles]

I've tried to use "whom"...but I always forget. gonk  

[Kohy]

I have learnt this a few weeks ago, and I must say, it has made writing essays much easier with an understanding for the two.

Have you learned about the uses of 'whomever' and 'whoever' also? Our english teacher gave us some pointers for the two.

If I come across them as I'm going through my notes, I'll be sure to post them ^_^ But right now I'm worrying about writing up three Chemistry labs and cannot seem to be able to find my English notebook.  

[talkintree]

Here are two websites for who/whom.
I've got a little headache now, so I didn't really look through them. They were the first ones on Google.com.

razz

Who and Whom

Who and Whom 2  

[Zealot of Insanity]

Alright.

Who- person doing action.

Example: "Who ate my cookie?", not "Whom ate my cookie?"

Whom - person action is done to

Example: "Whom did the ball hit?", not "Who did the ball hit?"

I hope this clears up some issues.  

[Sola Catella]

Yami no Hitokiri

Sola Catella

They're just different cases of the same word. Who is nominative and should only be used for the subject or the predicate nominative of the sentence. Whom should be used everywhere else.

Huh? question

Oh, er, sorry. I temporarily forgot that not everyone takes Latin (the language has five noun and pronoun case endings to English's two for pronouns only, so you tend to rack up very detailed knowledge on technical terms for cases). As CCS said, use 'who' where you'd use 'I' and 'whom' where you'd use 'me.'  

[Litia_Echo]

I love using the word Whom! I don't know, maybe cause not a lot of people use that word. >_^  

[Pythian]

Sola Catella

Oh, er, sorry. I temporarily forgot that not everyone takes Latin (the language has five noun and pronoun case endings to English's two for pronouns only, so you tend to rack up very detailed knowledge on technical terms for cases). As CCS said, use 'who' where you'd use 'I' and 'whom' where you'd use 'me.'

I must admit, five semesters of Latin made English much more understandable to me. This is especially true for subject vs. direct object and for subordinate clauses.

That said: Who/Whoever = subject, Whom/Whomever = direct object

Also, there was an above post in this tread about throwing useless words on the end of sentences, like "to". My biggest pet peeve is when "at" is thrown on, as it is done so often. Even on the news, now, anchors are doing this, which is starting to make me mourn for the intelligence of the nation.  

[Sola Catella]

Pythian

Sola Catella

Oh, er, sorry. I temporarily forgot that not everyone takes Latin (the language has five noun and pronoun case endings to English's two for pronouns only, so you tend to rack up very detailed knowledge on technical terms for cases). As CCS said, use 'who' where you'd use 'I' and 'whom' where you'd use 'me.'

I must admit, five semesters of Latin made English much more understandable to me. This is especially true for subject vs. direct object and for subordinate clauses.

That said: Who/Whoever = subject, Whom/Whomever = direct object

Also, there was an above post in this tread about throwing useless words on the end of sentences, like "to". My biggest pet peeve is when "at" is thrown on, as it is done so often. Even on the news, now, anchors are doing this, which is starting to make me mourn for the intelligence of the nation.

Yeah, but whom isn't just accusative case. In English, accusative, genitive, dative, and ablative are all glommed up together in the objective case. That means that things like indirect objects, objects of prepositions, and the like are also all for whom.  

[Katleene-chan]

It is so sad when people don't know when to use it. The public school system use to cover grammar intensely, but now it is just skimmed over. sad