# Who and Whom **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 26, 2012, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-and-whom/632686 "2012-08-26T04:48:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![IceQube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@IceQube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IceQube)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-and-whom/632686/1 "2012-08-26T04:48:26Z")
“Who will Mitt speak to”? Or is it: “Whom will Mitt speak to”? This isn’t about Mitt. It’s just the title of a piece I saw in a magazine. Is the title grammatically correct? At first, I thought no, and that the author doesn’t know crap about grammar, but in the article itself, the author uses “whom” correctly: “[…] yet another move to please the hardcore GOP covers whom Romney already has.” So the author does indeed seem to know when to use “whom.” The question is whether the author should have used “whom” in the title of the piece. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![zeno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zeno/32/15040_2.png) [@zeno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zeno)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-and-whom/632686/2 "2012-08-26T04:50:12Z")
“To whom will Mitt speak?” ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-and-whom/632686/3 "2012-08-26T04:50:15Z")
_"To whom will Mitt speak?_ At least, that’s the way I learned English grammar. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-and-whom/632686/4 "2012-08-26T05:04:52Z")
For one thing, titles of magazine and newspaper articles are not always written by the same person who wrote the article itself. For another thing, titles and headlines sometimes take a form of license, sacrificing precision or grammatical correctness for brevity or punchiness. And for what it’s worth, I vaguely remember reading in a high school grammar book that, even though “who” is correctly used in the subjective case and “whom” in the objective, using “who” where “whom” would be technically correct is permissible, or at least excusable, or at least not nearly as bad as using “whom” where “who” belongs. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-and-whom/632686/5 "2012-08-26T06:37:41Z")
1. In informal English, including written text, it is not incorrect to end a sentence with a preposition. There are more formal registers in which the old bugaboo is still considered improper, but in this context it seems fine. 2. Properly the first word should be _Wghom_, as the object of the preposition _to_ with which the sentence ends. However, this is a disjunctive use; the two words are in no way adjacent. And in strictly informal usage, _whom_ has more and more been giving way to _who_. Bring the _to_ bsck to the beginning of the sentence, and the situation changes; anyone without a tin ear will look for _to whom_. But “Who will Mitt speak to?” is not incorrect _in informal writing._ ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-and-whom/632686/6 "2012-08-26T07:00:37Z")
As Churchill said, and I can’t remember exactly, “obeying the stricture to never end a sentence with a proposition is one up with which I cannot put.” ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-and-whom/632686/7 "2012-08-26T07:06:37Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > As Churchill said, and I can’t remember exactly, “obeying the stricture to never end a sentence with a proposition is one up with which I cannot put.” “Excuse me, where’s the library at?” “I’m sorry, but here at Harvard, we don’t end a sentence with a preposition.” “Okay…where’s the library at, asshole?” ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-and-whom/632686/8 "2012-08-26T07:34:14Z")
“Whom” should be the “correct” pronoun, but it sounds like you got a stick up your ass if you use it. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-and-whom/632686/9 "2012-08-26T07:59:09Z")
“Whom . . . to” is one of my pet peeve constructions. I know that the _who/whom_ distinction is grammatically meaningful, while the rule about prepositions was never anything but BS, but I can’t help but feel that if you’re going to maintain one, you should maintain the other. “Whom . . . to” sounds as wrong to me as “to who.” It’s mixing registers. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-and-whom/632686/10 "2012-08-26T14:02:04Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > 1. Properly the first word should be _Wghom_, as the object of the preposition _to_ with which the sentence ends. However, this is a disjunctive use; the two words are in no way adjacent. And in strictly informal usage, _whom_ has more and more been giving way to _who_. Even in very formal contexts, _wghom_ is hardly ever used these days. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-and-whom/632686/11 "2012-08-26T14:04:38Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > “Excuse me, where’s the library at?” > “I’m sorry, but here at Harvard, we don’t end a sentence with a preposition.” > “Okay…where’s the library at, asshole?” “Excuse me, where’s the library at?” “It’s, like, all about books and stuff, man.” ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-and-whom/632686/12 "2012-08-26T14:17:48Z")
Who goes before the verb; whom goes after the verb. Who ate the chicken? The chicken ate whom? In this was, the grammar is the same as I (subjective pronoun) and me (objective pronoun). Do not get me started on Lenin’s famous questions, “Who? Whom?” He was asking who should give the orders and to who should the orders be given. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-and-whom/632686/13 "2012-08-26T14:30:37Z")
“Who will be spoken to by Mitt Romney?” Whom averted! > [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > Do not get me started on Lenin’s famous questions, “Who? Whom?” He was asking who should give the orders and to **who** should the orders be given. Sure about this? (Bolding is mine). 😃 ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-and-whom/632686/14 "2012-08-26T14:49:35Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > Who goes before the verb; whom goes after the verb. While this rule sometimes works, it gives the wrong answer in the example posed by the OP. It would also fail in the well-known line of Donne, “For whom the bell tolls”. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-and-whom/632686/15 "2012-08-26T15:04:13Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Even in very formal contexts, _wghom_ is hardly ever used these days. That’s simply an unwillingness to use voiceed laryngeal fricatives. No sense of adventure among English speakers these days! 😃 Or it could be a typo. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-and-whom/632686/16 "2012-08-26T15:06:46Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > Who goes before the verb; whom goes after the verb. > > Who ate the chicken? > The chicken ate whom? It’s still prescriptively correct to say, “Whom did the chicken eat?”, even though the interrogative pronoun is before the verb. It’s not about syntax, but rather, _ **case** _, so–as **Polycarp** notes–it’s not supposed to matter (prescriptively) that the preposition _to_ is clinging to the verb _speak_ at the end of the sentence in the OP’s example. In present day English the (object) case is so evident directly after a preposition that even with informal speech many people will still often apply it and say, “To whom are you referring?”, etc. In other words, it sounds “more correct” to say: “Who are you referring to?” than it does to say, “To who are you referring,” though neither is _prescriptively_ “correct.” ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-and-whom/632686/17 "2012-08-26T15:15:34Z")
[If ‘whom’ were still in active use, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005054.html) After all, nobody asks about how to correctly use ‘who’ or ‘you’. [So we have this](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001437.html): > [@](#): > > Kiss _whom_ goodbye. It is rarely heard in conversation now, and just about never in clause-initial position. This word is nearly dead. It is close to being no more. It has all but ceased to be. If it wasn’t Magic-Markered onto a defaced flag from time to time it would be pushing up the daisies. This is almost an ex-word. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-and-whom/632686/18 "2012-08-26T15:17:01Z")
> [@hibernicus](#): > > It would also fail in the well-known line of Donne, “For whom the bell tolls”. Just imagine a cover letter that begins: “ **To who it may concern:** ” ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-and-whom/632686/19 "2012-08-26T15:30:49Z")
Whom = him. Who = he. Any grammatical context that would require “him” needs “whom” in formal written English. In spoken English, “whom” has pretty much fallen out of the language altogether, though educated speakers will put it back in formal contexts. “Don’t end a sentence with a preposition” was never a rule in spoken English. It was a rule in Latin, and imported into English because shouldn’t English grammar be like Latin? So it is incorrect to end a sentence with “to” in formal written English, but not really a problem in the spoken language. Correct formal English: _To whom will Mitt speak?_ Standard spoken English: _Who will Mitt speak to?_ _Whom will Mitt speak to?_ is sort of a weird hybrid between the two. I wouldn’t say it’s wrong, but I certainly wouldn’t use it in a headline. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-and-whom/632686/20 "2012-08-26T15:31:09Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > Just imagine a cover letter that begins: “ **To who it may concern:** ” To me, this alone refutes any notion of the “death” of whom. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-and-whom/632686.md?page=2)