Is 'whom' incorrect in this sentence? [duplicate]

I can never figure out whether I should use who and whom. Most people use who for both colloquially, but some people say this is not correct.

What’s the rule for using who and whom correctly?

Solution 1:

The easy way to tell which is technically correct is to substitute he and him for who and whom, then rearrange the word order to see which sounds right.

“Who were you speaking to?” becomes “You were speaking to he” — which is clearly incorrect.

Solution 2:

Short answer: When in doubt, use who. It's disconcerting to hear whom where who is expected, but the usage of who in situations where previously whom was standard has been increasing, especially in spoken usage.

Longer answer: The traditional rule is that whom was to be used in the "objective case". What this means in practice (it's even controversial whether English has cases), is that you try to answer the question: if the answer is he, she, they, I, we, etc., you use who. If the answer is him, her, them, me, us, etc., you use whom.

Examples:

"The man who spoke yesterday…", not "the man whom spoke…" ("He spoke" is correct; "Him spoke" is not.)
"Whom did you see?", not "Who did you see?" ("I saw him", not "I saw he".) The latter is frequently common these days, though.

The Language Log posts (1, 2, 3) linked in another answer, as well as William Safire quoted on the Wikipedia page, recommend avoiding whom or recasting your sentence if it seems necessary.

Someone using whom in place of who is likely to be interpreted as a hypercorrection from linguistic insecurity (and Geoff Pullum at the Language Log agrees), while using who in place of whom is, at worst, being too colloquial (and at best, being hip and cool!). Summary: it's good to know which is which and use them correctly, but when in doubt, use who.

Solution 3:

"Whom remains in significant use following a preposition" but use in objective case is moribund. The Wikipedia article on "who" has a detailed explanation.

The death of "whom" has been tracked on Language Log over the years. For example, here and here.

More examples:

"It's a made-up word used to trick students."
"As far as I'm concerned, 'whom' is a word that was invented to make everyone sound like a butler."

Solution 4:

Who and whom also happen to be relative pronouns. Relative pronouns link noun phrases (NP) to relative clauses (RC).

Who is the subject pronoun, and it has its object form whom and possessive form whose. Who and whom refer to people only.

For the last half century or so who has been used more and more for both positions: subject and object. Whom, on the other hand, is used as an object or as the complement of a preposition in formal contexts.

That is the repairmen who fixed your car.
Your friend Alex and his wife Samantha, whom he courted for so long, are getting a divorce.

Which is another relative pronoun, but not used for persons. Even though I have seen several very good writers use and get away with it.

Whose is the easiest relative pronoun to use: it can be used for people, animals, and things.

Solution 5:

This is an attempt to also formulate an answer to my own recent question which was marked as a duplicate:

How do I choose between ‘who’ or ‘whom’ when the subject pronoun is murky?

I am still working on this subject but what I have managed to grasp is the following;

'who' is a subject pronoun and 'whom' is an object pronoun

as explained by Professor Malcolm Gibson's article Who is correct? Yes, though it may depend on whom you ask! which I referenced in two of my answers on ELU regarding who/whom: therefore an example of a practical approach that I would suggest at present would be

Look at the verb that requires who/whom:
if the verb needs a subject pronoun, select ‘who’. If the verb does not need a subject pronoun, see whether it is a transitive or an intransitive verb.

If it is a transitive verb, it needs an object pronoun: so select ‘whom’

If it is an intransitive verb or a linking verb, it does not need an object pronoun: so select ‘who’.

In more complex sentences having multiple verbs, the choice of who/whom depends on whether the clause as a whole takes a subject pronoun or an object pronoun.

Appendix: Explanatory notes

The so-called ‘simple substitution rule’ given in earlier answers works especially well in simple sentences, as does my own method highlighted above. Problems arise when the sentence does not obviously require a subject pronoun, and the concerned verb is moreover not obviously transitive, making it difficult to decide whether it needs an object pronoun.

As @Peter Shor pointed out in the comments, problems also arise when the sentence has more than one verb, in which case the problem is how to decide which verb ‘who/whom’ would apply to: to determine which, some element of contextual reading and deconstruction might be required.

Example: “These are the men who they believe conspired to rob a bank.” – Peter Shor

Decoding this sentence, “what do they believe?” – “they believe (that) these men conspired to rob a bank.”

Whom is not to be used after ‘these are the men’ because the object of the transitive verb ‘believe’ is not ‘these men’ but the object clause, “these men conspired to rob a bank.”

Now it is notable that changing any verb other than 'believe' will not change the choice of who/whom: not even if a transitive verb like '(they) saw', which makes ‘these men’ its object, were to replace ‘conspired’; as in

they believe (that) they saw these men rob the bank:

these are the men who they believe they saw rob the bank.

Why not ‘whom’, since they saw these men? Aren't these the men whom they saw rob the bank? Not exactly, because they only 'believe' so – and the object of the verb ‘believe’ is again not ‘these men’ but the object clause 'they saw these men rob the bank' – in short, ‘these men’ never being the object of ‘believe’, ‘whom’ is not to be selected here.

Modifying the use of ‘believe’ a little will, however, change the choice of who/whom:

They believe these men to have conspired to rob the bank.

‘These men’ having finally become the object of ‘believe’, ‘whom’ is now required here.

These are the men (whom) they believe to have conspired to rob the bank.

Thus we might conclude, as @Andrew Leach suggested in a comment on my recent who/whom question, that

(4) in more complex sentences having multiple verbs, the choice of who/whom depends on whether the clause as a whole takes a subject pronoun or an object pronoun [paraphrase].

Expert members please evaluate this method and post comments suggesting corrections/improvements to the practical approach I have highlighted in this answer.