Do you know your who-whom rules? Not sure? Try out the questions below!
Example A: [Who/whom] is responsible for these doodles of dainty dugongs on my worksheet?
Example B: [Who/whom] is Stephy riding dugongs with?
Example C: Jamie is an artist [who/whom] who will never be good at drawing dugongs.
Example D: Salik is the conservationist [who/whom] Abu will entrust the task of saving dugongs to.
If that got you scratching your head, read on and lay your doubts to rest once and for all.
Instead of using complicated grammar lexicon to explain the rules, we’ll use simple layman terms that any primary school student will be able to grasp.
1. Doer & Receiver
Doer refers to the person performing the action while receiver refers to the person who is on the receiving end of an action.
The rules run thus:
- Whenever you’re referring to the doer, use who.
- Conversely, when you’re referring to the receiver, use whom.
Back to our examples…
Example A: [Who/whom] is responsible for these doodles of dainty dugongs on my worksheet?
Doer: the unknown doodle artist
Answer: who
Example B: [Who/whom] is Stephy riding dugongs with?
Doer: Stephy
Receiver: Stephy’s riding companion
Answer: whom
Example C: Jamie is an artist [who/whom] who will never be good at drawing dugongs.
Doer: Jamie
Answer: who
Example D: Salik is the conservationist [who/whom] Abu will entrust the task of saving dugongs to.
Doer: Abu (the person doing the entrusting)
Receiver: Salik (the person entrusted with the task)
Answer: whom
2. He/she/they versus him/her/them
The rules run thus:
- If the sentence is a question and the answer to that question involves he/she/they, use who. If the answer involves him/her/them, use whom.
- If it’s a sentence and the person of interest can be replaced with he/she/they, use who. If the person of interest can be replaced with him/her/them, use whom.
Back to our examples…
Example A: [Who/whom] is responsible for these doodles of dainty dugongs on my worksheet?
Possible reply: He/She is responsible for these doodles of dainty dugongs on my worksheet.
Wrong reply: Him/Her is responsible for these doodles of dainty dugongs on my worksheet.
Answer: who
Example B: [Who/whom] is Stephy riding dugongs with?
Possible reply: Stephy is riding dugongs with him/her/them. Wrong reply: Stephy is riding dugongs with he/she/they.
Answer: whom
Example C: Jamie is an artist [who/whom] who will never be good at drawing dugongs.
Possible rephrasing: He (Jamie) will never be good at drawing dugongs.
Wrong rephrasing: Him (Jamie) will never be good at drawing dugongs.
Answer: who
Example D: Salik is the conservationist [who/whom] Abu will entrust the task of saving dugongs to.
Possible rephrasing: Abu will entrust the task of saving dugongs to him (Salik).
Wrong rephrasing: Abu will entrust the task of saving dugongs to he (Salik).
Answer: whom
Now, [who/whom] says that grammar rules are hard?
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