Who and whom revisited

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Friday October 16, 2009

Who and whom revisited

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I refer to Kengt’s response on the use of “who” and “whom” in Mind Our English, Sept 18 which was in reference to another query in MOE on Aug 27. I appreciate what Kengt was trying to do, but his explanation might not go down well with the man on the street.

Let me explain it in simple terms:

“Who” usually takes a verb after it.

e.g: He is the man who helped me yesterday.

Notice “who” is followed by the verb “helped”.

Whom usually takes a noun after it.

e.g: Sally is a friend whom we have known for 20 years.

Notice “whom” is followed by the noun “we”.

Perhaps this simple explanation would help. – Joseph David

Note from Fadzilah Amin: Joseph David’s answer to Kengt, says that “who” usually takes a verb after it and “whom” usually takes a noun. This rule, in my opinion, is too simplistic. Even in his example, “Sally is a friend whom we have known for 20 years.” “we” is NOT a noun but a pronoun.

Even if we modify the rule to: “ ‘Who’ usually takes a verb after it and ‘whom’ usually takes a noun or a pronoun.”, we would not be correct. Look at this heading on a BBC website:

“Who’s backing whom in US race?”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/ 7227350.stm

“Who” is indeed followed by the noun (this should actually be verb) “is”, but “whom” is followed by a preposition – “in”.

And take this quotation: “This is called the ‘cultural village’ and is full of people who are associated with culture, a lot of whom work with the Sierra Leone Dance Troupe ...”

http://www.guardianweekly.co.uk/?page=editorial&id=51&catID=9

“Whom” here is followed by a verb.

As to Kengt’s statement that we should not “concern ourselves so much with informal usage”, I disagree with this.

When it comes to using British English, we can sound too formal (i.e. stilted) when we use “whom” in certain situations.

For example, it sounds more natural to say “Who are you travelling with?” instead of “With whom are you travelling?”

Another example can be drawn from the name of the BBC investigation mentioned in the following quotation:

“They will feature in the first part of the three-part BBC investigation, entitled Who’s Watching Who?”

http://www.thisisdorset.net/news/tidnews/4317615.Spied_upon_mum_from_Poole_in_BBC_documentary/

“Who’s watching who?” does not follow Oh Teik Theam’s guide, quoted by Kengt, because when translated into personal pronouns, we could say, for example, “We are watching them.” and so the second “who” ought to be “whom” in a formal style, as in “Who’s backing whom in US race?” that I quoted earlier. But the BBC opted for the less formal style for the name of their programme.

There is more to the use of “who” and “whom” in British English than can be summed up in a sentence or two.

But for those learners who may be confused about when to use “who” and when to use “whom”, it may be safer to stick to Oh Teik Theam’s guide.

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The above are the responses to my newspaper article posted in this blog on September 28, 2009.

Note from Fadzilah Amin has claimed that I made the statement that we should not “concern ourselves so much with informal usage”. This appears arbitrary to me based on the following points.

(A) Quoting a book, I did say, "In practice, “who” is widely used in both roles (subject and object), especially in speech; “whom” is regarded as rather formal."

(B) I did say, "Perhaps, some writers indulge in informal usages, sometimes, for being natural or for fluency.

(C) That we do not concern ourselves so much with informal usage is merely a suggestion to those who have confusion which can be compounded by concern over informal usage.