'Whom' is Where the Heart is by Rob Kyff on Creators.com

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'Whom' is Where the Heart is

The "who/whom" dilemma is the health care debate of grammar. The issues involved are so complicated and convoluted that no one really understands them.

That's why the late William Safire threw up his hands in 1992 and advocated a kind of single-payer system: Use "who" when you're sure it's correct; when you're not sure, rewrite the sentence to avoid using "whom." Thus, "Whom do you trust?" would be recast as "Which person do you trust?"

Other grammarians advocate a "competing providers" approach: Use "who" when a nominative pronoun, such "he" or "I," could stand in for "who," and use "whom" when an objective case pronoun, such as "him" or "me," could stand in for "who." Hence, we say, "The quarterback who played Saturday was excellent" (he played yesterday) and "Whom do you favor as quarterback?" (do you favor him?).

But in two types of constructions, things can get tricky.

The first occurs when the "who/m" appears to be the object of a verb or preposition (thus requiring "whom"), when in fact it's the subject or inverted subject of a verb.

For instance, in the sentence, "He had his suspicions about who/m it might be," you might think "who/m" is the object of the preposition "about" (about him, about whom).

In fact, it's the inverted subject of the verb "might be" (it might be he, it might be who).

So the sentence is correctly rendered, "He had his suspicions about who it might be."

The second deceptive construction occurs when a parenthetical verb phrase is inserted. For instance, in the sentence, "Police arrested a man who they say is the thief," you're tempted to see "who/m" as the object of the verb phrase "they say."

In fact, "they say" is parenthetical and doesn't affect the case of "who." In essence, the sentence means "police arrested a man who is the thief."

I told you it was confusing. Give me something simple like the health care debate!

Now test your skills as a "who"-ligan by selecting "who" or "whom" in each sentence:

1. The hooligan is out there but no one knows who/whom he is. 2. The hooligan is out there but no one knows who/m to blame. 3. The hooligan is someone who/m people believe is dangerous. 4. The hooligan is someone who/m people blame.

Answers:

1. who 2. whom 3. who 4. whom

Rob Kyff, a teacher and writer in West Hartford, Conn., invites your language sightings. Send your reports of misuse and abuse, as well as examples of good writing, via e-mail to Wordguy@aol.com or by regular mail to Rob Kyff, Creators Syndicate, 5777 W. Century Blvd., Suite 700, Los Angeles, CA 90045. To find out more about Rob Kyff and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.