Who versus whom | The parts of speech | Grammar | Khan Academy Video Lecture | Complete Course on English Grammar: Upgrade your Speaking & Listening - Personal Skills

hello grammarians welcome to one of the
thorniest fights in English usage today
the question of whether or not you
should use who or whom in a sentence as
a relative pronoun so there's this basic
idea that who is the subject form and
whom is the object form which means that
if we're talking about someone who is
the doer then we say who as in the Spy
Who Loved me as opposed to someone who
is Dewey the object as in the spy whom I
loved you see because in this sentence
who is the subject and in this sentence
I is the subject me is the object and
whom is the object I'd loved whom in
this sentence I am doing the loving in
this sentence it is the spy who is doing
the loving that's the basic rule but
this does not adequately reflect the way
our culture actually uses and has used
whom or who for some time in many cases
it has become permissible to use who as
an object let me show you what I mean
so the thing to remember is that the
basic rule is a one-way street because
the Wayne language is changing whom is
on its way out I imagine in another 50
75 years we won't be using it at all
is that sad sure a little bit I mean I'm
sad that nobody ever uses the pronoun
who so as in who so pulleth this sword
from this stone is rightwise born King
of England
we don't use that anymore it's
old-fashioned now we say whoever and
that's okay so we know that the basic
rule is that you use who as a subject
and whom is an object but you can also
now use who as an object the only thing
you can't do is whom is not a subject
that's the thing you need to remember is
that whom's use is not expanding it is
contracting who is taking over some of
whom's duties so let's go back to that
spy example so here are the four
possible options right the Spy Who Loved
Me the
by whom loved me the spy who I loved and
the spy whom I loved now of these only
this one is incorrect because we're
trying to use whom as a subject but here
the spy who I loved where who is being
an object by the informal rules of our
grammar today this is fine either of
these is fine the only one that's not
fine is this guy right here the spy whom
loved me because this language change is
going in one direction and it's in the
direction of whom being used less often
so whom never expands from its original
position who does so the next time
you're puzzling over what to do in the
event of the sentence who are you
talking to and whether or not this
pronoun here should be who or whom it's
really an issue of tone rather than
correctness because they're both both
possibilities are equally understandable
yes technically if you wanted to be very
correct you would say whom are you
talking to or you are talking to whom
because whom is the object of this
preposition it's to whom and so
therefore we would use the object form
but you find that when you separate it
out in this question when you when you
put the two at the end and the whom
question particle at the beginning this
M just kind of falls away because we're
we're more likely to use whom when it's
immediately preceded by a preposition
but otherwise it's probably more likely
gonna be who which is why it's not that
big of a deal to say who are you talking
to it's not technically correct but it's
been used for so long that it's fine you
are talking to who is a little bit more
formal of a construction and therefore
you would probably want to use whom
saying you are talking to who is not as
common
so in this Wilder swamp of rule-breaking
there is one hard grammar rule to pay
attention to and it's just never used
whom as a subject the role of whom
in our constellation of pronouns is
decreasing not expanding who is taking
over whom and since who is the subject
whom is not moving into that space whom
is the object pronoun and you use it
when you're feeling fancy you can learn
anything Dave it out