Dear
Master’s student,
Welcome
back to a new academic year! To those whom
who took some time off during summer: I hope you had a restful break without
too much summer
learning loss.
To students whom who worked all the way through our heat wave: I
feel your pain, but hopefully your writing skills stayed sharp with all that
course work.
Since
the fall term is in full-swing, let’s jump right into a nitty-gritty writing
issue that pretty much every writer has struggled with: when to use “who” and
when to use “whom.”
As
much as I love a good arcane grammar explanation, I’ll spare our Master’s
students that singular joy.* Instead, get ready for a handy trick that
will revolutionize your grammatical world.
1.
First notice that whom and him
both end in “m.” We’ll use them
interchangeably with this shortcut:
whom⇌ him
Also
note that who and he both end in vowels. Those two will be swapped for each other,
too:
who ⇌ he
2. When you’re writing a sentence and aren’t
sure whether to type out a “who” or a “whom,” look at the words immediately
after the who/whom point-of-conundrum, and then swap him for whom, and he for who. At this point, most
people can “hear” which version sounds better.
For example,
Researchers {who/whom} we
gave grants to are beholden to us.
Using the trick
mentioned above, consider which of the following “sounds” better:
We gave grants to [he].
We gave grants to
[him].
3. Hopefully you picked the second version. Since him
can be swapped with whom
according to our grammar shortcut, the sentence should read “Researchers whom we gave grants to are
beholden to us.”
Try a few more for
practice:
(a) He is the man {who/whom} Barkley loaned the book to.
(b) He is the man {who/whom} loaned Barkley the book.
(c) Jamie Lannister, {who/whom} has just had his sword-hand amputated, rushes in to save Brienne from a monstrous bear.
(d) Alex and Dave don’t know {who/whom} to confide in after they break up for the second time.
(e) Those {who/whom} have seen Girls know that Shoshanna has a keen mathematical mind and fairly fast growing hair.
Happy writing!
James
PS: The answers:
(a) whom
(b) who
(c) who
(d) whom
(e) who
* But, of course, I’m more than happy to indulge
anyone seeking the “complete” exposition, complete with terms like “nominative
case” and a rundown on English pronouns.
Email me at jhayashi@usc.edu
