# Whoever or Whomever?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoever-or-whomever/473578>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 20, 2008, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoever-or-whomever/473578 "2008-11-20T02:05:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![BoneMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c4cdca/32.png) [@BoneMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BoneMan)\
**Post date:** [November 20, 2008, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoever-or-whomever/473578/1 "2008-11-20T02:05:12Z")

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Microsoft Word 2008 recently gave me the dreaded green squiggly for the use of “whom” in a sentence. Although I usually distrust Bill Gates in most things grammatical, I decided this time to see the explanation page for Word’s reasoning, and, to my surprise, ran across the following cited as an example:

> [@](#):
>
> Instead of: Tell it to whomever lost the book.
> 
> Consider: Tell it to whoever lost the book.

To me, “whoever” looks like the object of the preposition “to” in that sentence, and so it should be “whomever”.

A Google search turned up convincing arguments for both sides, so I am torn over which case is correct.

Would anyone care to settle the matter for me?

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**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\
**Post date:** [November 20, 2008, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoever-or-whomever/473578/2 "2008-11-20T02:13:52Z")

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> [@BoneMan](#):
>
> Microsoft Word 2008 recently gave me the dreaded green squiggly for the use of “whom” in a sentence. Although I usually distrust Bill Gates in most things grammatical, I decided this time to see the explanation page for Word’s reasoning, and, to my surprise, ran across the following cited as an example:
> 
> To me, “whoever” looks like the object of the preposition “to” in that sentence, and so it should be “whomever”.
> 
> A Google search turned up convincing arguments for both sides, so I am torn over which case is correct.
> 
> Would anyone care to settle the matter for me?

In this case, whoever.  
You can always use me as the cite, but if you want another:

> **[Whoever vs. Whomever | Grammar Rules and Examples](https://www.grammarbook.com/grammar/whoever.asp)**
>
> To determine whether to use whoever or whomever, here is the rule: they equals whoever, them equals whomever.