Hello all!

I’m back with another word pair, and today’s culprits are responsible for tripping up nearly every writer at some point. It tends to be the case that we’re taught both words somewhere along the way–so we know that they mean the same thing but are supposed to be used in different situations–but we somehow never really learn when who is the appropriate choice and when whom is the appropriate choice. We scratch our heads trying to figure it out, and then ultimately give up and either just guess or choose to use who exclusively because it’s the safer choice.

So, how do you know when to use who and when to use whom?

The truth is that there’s actually a trick that makes the choice super simple. We don’t tend to have any problems knowing when to use he/she versus him/her, and who and whom follow the exact same rules. The trick is to simply substitute he/she or him/her into the sentence, which will tell you when to use who (in cases where he/she fits) and when to use whom (in cases where him/her fits). For example, Who/whom was playing music too loud? In this case, it works to say She was playing music too loud, so we know that the proper sentence is Who was playing music too loud? By contrast, in the sentence To who/whom does this CD belong?, we can substitute in him to answer The CD belongs to him. Thus, the proper choice in this case is To whom does this CD belong?

The reason this trick works is because, while they indicate the same idea and are both pronouns, who is the subject of the verb while whom is the object, same as he/she functions as the subject while him/her functions as the object. But if all you remember is the trick (and not why it works), you’ll be in good shape and able to use who and whom with the best of them!

Until next time!