Grammer a Week 6: "Who" vs. "Whom" · 1:08am Mar 7th, 2015
This is Grammer a Week, the periodic blog program-thing where I address a frequently broken grammar rule and tell you how to fix it. This week's installment is about the difference between "who" and "whom." If you're speaking informally, you could simply use "who" all the time and no one would care much. But if you're one of few who cares about these sort of things, read on.
Here's a question that I know a lot of people have. Yet, it has a very simple answer. Therefore, this blog is going to be rather short.
In what situations would you use "whom" as opposed to "who"?
The answer: in the same situations that you would use "me" instead of "I."
If you're at least somewhat familiar with the English language, you'll know that a sentence like "Fluttershy jumped on I," just seems wrong. You would also know that the correct form of the sentence is "Fluttershy jumped on me." The correction you just made is changing a pronoun from the nominative to the objective case.
Did you just look at your screen strangely? Let me clarify these terms: "nominative" simply refers to the case where a pronoun, like "I," is doing an action:
I kicked Fluttershy.
You are doing the action of kicking, so "I" is the nominative pronoun. You may also know this as the "subject" of the sentence.
The "objective" case is not when a pronoun is doing the action, but when the action is being applied to the pronoun. For example:
Fluttershy glared at me.
Notice how you are no longer doing any action; you're just being stared at. Since an action is being applied to you, and not the other way around, "me" is used—the "objective" pronoun—as opposed to "I"—the "nominative" pronoun. Here are a few more lines:
I tried to walk away from Fluttershy. She continued to stalk me, eyes scintillating with anger. I tried to apologize, but Fluttershy wouldn't hear any words from me.
If this is clear now, let's move on. "Who" and "whom" follow the same pattern of "I" and "me": "Who" is the nominative case of the pronoun, whereas "whom" is the objective case. Have another example:
Twilight came up to us and broke up the deadlock. Fluttershy's eyes turned soft again, and she began to apologize. Twilight waved her hoof and asked, "Okay, who started the argument?"
Notice that the verb "started" applies to "who"; therefore, the nominative case is used.
I raised my hand timidly. "I kicked her."
Twilight shook her head in disappointment. "You know that it's not a good idea to kick whomever you want, right?
"Whomever" follows the same rules as "whom." This sentence includes "you" doing the kicking, and "whomever" doing nothing besides receiving the kick. That's why the objective case of "whomever" is used instead of "whoever."
Okay, let's ditch this, frankly, really weird storyline. I'll close with a quote from one of my own stories. It includes both "who" and "whom," and hopefully, you can understand why I chose the words I did.
Twilight looked at the ponies beside her: five ponies who would give their lives for hers, and for whom she would gladly do the same.
Thanks for reading! If you have any questions or comments, please post them below. I'm always open to suggestions for future Grammer a Week posts.
Until a few years ago, I'd pretty much dropped "whom" from my personal vocabulary entirely, but I've found it coming back in. Nowadays, I'd almost certainly follow your example and use "for whom" in that last quoted sentence, for example. "Whomever" I'd probably avoid entirely in ponyfic dialogue, though, especially as nopony* has ever used it in the show. I wonder whether it's yet another Transatlantic difference? It would fit with the general pattern of BrE being more flexible/sloppier (delete according to taste!) than AmE. Though we still use "amongst" and "whilst" fairly frequently, so what do I know?
* Nopony, though Discord does use it (admittedly in a mocking context) in "Three's a Crowd".
2855696
Heck, I use "amongst" and "whilst" a lot too, so what do I know?
And I would argue with you that "whomever" is warranted in this instance because Twilight is the one saying it. She would be the one to know the difference. And there's no restriction to using "whom" and "whomever" in prose, so it's still a worthwhile subject to explore.
As for this being an AmE difference, I'm almost certain that it's not. People will look at you strangely if you ever use "whom" in dialogue, and they'll do the same in all but the most sensitive publications. I pointedly avoid saying "whom" in conversation because it would paint me in an elitist light. I may know the difference, but nobody really cares that I do.
2855721
In theory, I agree with you: Twilight is not only book-smart, she's also from a canonically upper-class city and the protégé of a princess. If anypony's going to care about the difference, it's her. In practice, less so: Twi doesn't use the word in canon at all, and she's had enough opportunities.
Of course, there's an interesting discussion to be had about how rigidly one should stick to canon: Rarity uses "lay" when she means "lie" on more than one occasion, and back in S1 Applejack repeatedly used "y'all" in the singular. So I guess the answer is the same one it always is: whatever works best for the fic you're writing.
Oh, definitely. These blog posts you're doing are really interesting; I wish more people did this sort of thing.
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Hee! Thank you! You're one of the few who actually does find these discussions interesting.
And I think it's pretty clear that at this point, I take canon a little looser than you do, though more because I'm unaware of it and not because I'm pointedly avoiding it. Frankly, I've never noticed any of the things you've mentioned to me before! I just characters' personalities coarsely and figure out how to fit it into a story!
2855765 I've always found language usage interesting, right back to my schooldays -- which were quite some time ago now! I think it's stood me in good stead, too: if you have a solid grounding in the building blocks of language, you can concentrate on doing the interesting bits of architecture!
I probably do try to follow canon more closely than many people do. For example, in We Who with Songs Beguile, there's a scene where Mazarine (my blue jay protagonist) describes the rehearsal for Cadance's wedding. Everything he mentions fits with what we see in the (three-second!) rehearsal scene from the S2 finale itself. Maybe that's overdoing it a bit, but I find it satisfying when it all comes together.
2855796
Ooh! I may very well have to steal that quote from you. I love that analogy!
Huh, interesting - correlations with I/me obviously work, but I've always seen it recommended that you use he/him instead. At least to me, it does appear that the similarity in sound helps match things up correctly quicker. If you've seen both used, I'd be curious to know which seemed to work better for most people.