whom

Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary

Contents 1 English 1.1 Etymology 1.2 Pronunciation 1.3 Pronoun 1.3.1 Usage notes 1.3.2 Translations

[edit] English

Wikipedia

[edit] Etymology

Old English hwam

[edit] Pronunciation

• IPA: /huːm/, SAMPA: /hu:m/
•  Audio (US)^{help, file}

[edit] Pronoun

whom (the singular and plural objective case of who)

1. (formal) What person or people; which person or people, as the object of a verb.

   Whom did you ask?

2. (formal) What person or people; which person or people, as the object of a preposition.

   To whom are you referring?

   With whom were you talking?

3. Him; her; them (used as a relative pronoun to refer to a previously mentioned person or people.)

   He's a person with whom I work.

   We have ten employees, of whom half are carpenters.

[edit] Usage notes

In both spoken and most written language, who is often used in place of whom, even as an object, although some prescriptivists regard such usage as incorrect. In US English, the use of whom is characteristic of a formal style and is often considered stilted in informal conversation. Usage of whom is more common in UK English, particularly after a preposition (with whom, from whom etc).

Whom is an object pronoun, while who is both a subject and object pronoun. One would never use whom as the subject of a verb though who is commonly used as an object. One method to use to determine correctness of who vs. whom is to rephrase the sentence to eliminate who or whom in favor of he, him, she, her, they or them. If you would have used he, she, or they, in place of the word, then who is the correct word; if you would have used him, her, or them, then either who or whom is correct. The exception is when it is the object of a fronted prepositional phrase in a question or relative clause, in which case whom is almost always used (e.g., With whom (not who) did you go?).

This also applies for whoever and whomever, in which if you would replace that word with 'he' or 'she', then 'who' or 'whoever' is the correct word; if you would use 'him' or 'her' instead, then 'whom' or 'whomever' is correct.

In the Mamas & The Papas song Go where you wanna go there is a line, You gotta go where you wanna go, Do what you wanna do With whomever you want to do it, babe. We can rephrase the end of this sentence correctly as "with him or her, babe". We cannot correctly rephrase the sentence as "with he or she, babe" and thus, "whomever" was correct in the line of that song.

[edit] Translations

• Bosnian: koga (1); s kim m., s kojom f., s kojim m. (1: with whom); kome m., kojem m., kojoj f., kojim m. (2: to whom, about whom)
• Dutch: die (1), wie (1), waarmee (2), waarvan (2), waaronder (2)
• French: de qui, à qui, avec qui
• Indonesian: yang, yang mana
• Serbian:

  Cyrillic: кога (1); с ким m., с којом f., с којим m. (1: with whom); коме m., којем m., којој f., којим m. (2: to whom, about whom)

  Roman: koga (1); s kim m., s kojom f., s kojim m. (1: with whom); kome m., kojem m., kojoj f., kojim m. (2: to whom, about whom)