When is whom appropriate

Consider these examples:. To whom was the letter addressed? Whom do you believe? I do not know with whom I will go to the prom. How can you tell when your pronoun is the object of a verb or preposition? Keep in mind that you may have to temporarily rearrange the sentence a bit while you test it. Her ate my sandwich. That means the word you want is who. Whom ate my sandwich? Who ate my sandwich? Just be careful, because there is an exception: There is one context in which you should always use whom : after a preposition at the beginning of a sentence or clause.

For example, To whom did you address that letter? Who, like other pronouns such as I he, and she, is a subject. So, it is the person performing the action of the verb. On the other hand, whom, acts like me, him, and her in a sentence. It is the object. Receive feedback on your performance and improve your score quick. This sentence is difficult because it contains a clause.

A complex sentence contains an independent clause and one or more dependent clauses. An independent clause can stand alone as a sentence, but a dependent clause even though it has a subject and a verb cannot stand alone. The last clause is adjectival clause. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights.

Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. Grace Fleming. Education Expert. Therefore, it is crucial to learn the differences, practice them, and use them confidently. To ensure that who and whom, as well as the correct forms of all words, are being used in your writing, be sure to check out our copy editing and proofreading services. Our expert editors will ensure your work is grammatically sound.

Blog Mailing List Log In. Who and Whom as Relative Pronouns Who and whom are both used as relative pronouns and are easily confused. Examples of who and whom used as relative pronouns follow: The office was disrupted by the man, whom many consider to be rude.

The man who ran through the office was very rude. As you can see, both examples are used to link one clause to another. Consider the Subject Versus the Object for Who and Whom Are you referring to someone who is doing something who , or are you referring to someone who is having something done to them whom?

Who as a Subjective Pronoun Who is used to provide more information about a person or people mentioned previously in a sentence. Examples of using who as a subjective pronoun follows. Who handed it to him? Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. Who let the dogs out?