--for those who speak English as their second language or who just want to improve their writing
Whereas who, whoever, and whosoever take the place of the subjects of sentences and phrases; whom, whomever, and whomsoever take the place of objects.
In speech and informal writing, where grammatical rules are somewhat relaxed, "who" tends to predominate. Not too many eyebrows are raised when "who" is spoken--even when "whom" is called for. (I admit that it takes more than a misspoken "who" or "whom" to give my eyebrows much of a workout.)
In formal writing, however, the rules should be followed. But we find that our ears are often unreliable guides to "who" and "whom" because of the relaxed rules for speech. Instead, we need to dissect the sentence to find the subject and object. Even for those of you who actually looked forward to diagramming sentences in your high school English class, this can be a challenging task, especially if the sentence is made up of multiple phrases or if the words are not in the familiar subject-verb-object (Dick-helped-Jane) order:
I collaborated with the writer who/whom the IEEE had recently honored at an awards ceremony in Seattle, Washington.
First find the core phrase that contains the pronoun.
Is it
I collaborated with the writer who/whom?
or
who/whom the IEEE had recently honored?
There is already a noun in the first phrase, "writer," so we work with the second phrase:
who/whom the IEEE had recently honored
Next, delete the pronoun and reword the phrase so that it has the subject-verb-object form:
the IEEE had recently honored blank
Find out who or what is performing the action (the subject "the IEEE") and who or what is receiving the action (the object "blank") in the core phrase. Either the subject or the object will be missing. If the subject is missing, use "who," "whoever," or "whosoever" in the sentence. If the object is missing, use "whom," "whomever," or "whomsoever."
I collaborated with the writer whom the IEEE had recently honored at an awards ceremony in Seattle, Washington.
Still confused? Try substituting "he" and "him" for the missing part of the rearranged phrase. If "he" sounds correct, use "who," "whoever," or "whosoever." If "him" sounds correct, use "whom," "whomever," or "whomsoever."
the IEEE had recently honored him
 |
 |
 |
 |
[Privacy Policy and Important Notices]
Responsible NASA Official: Sue.E.Butts@nasa.gov,
Glenn Technical Publications Manager
Web Curator: Caroline.A.Rist@nasa.gov
(Wyle)
Last updated: 1/20/2009