A list of the top five things that tick people off includes toilet paper hung backwards (whichever way that is), the sound of people chewing loudly, and the misuse of who and whom.
A list of the top five things that tick people off includes toilet paper hung backwards (whichever way that is), the sound of people chewing loudly, and the misuse of who and whom.
Whether to use who or whom confounds a lot of people. The basic rule is easy enough, but even the most seasoned editors and writers can stumble over sentences like the following:
Think about who you want to cover and who is eligible for coverage.
Part of the problem is that the sentence sounds perfectly natural. And in fact, in everyday conversation, it’s fine. But in more formal contexts and to be grammatically correct, that first who should be whom.
Recall from last week that who is used when you need a subject, and whom when you need an objective pronoun. But in addition to who, there are other subjective pronouns. Select who when the individual or the individuality of the group is meant, and that when a class, species, or type is meant.
Topics: who, which, or that, subjective pronouns, objective pronouns
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