Whom vs Who: The Fight of the Heavyweights

Confusion is always prevalent in the use of who and whom. Where to use them and how to use them becomes a matter of great concern while writing prose. Do not worry, we have some simple tricks and tips to understand how and when to use both heavyweights.

We all may be familiar that a sentence consists of two parts: a subject and a predicate. The predicate mainly contains the object. A subject performs the act, and an object is the one on whom the act is performed. 

Now, who is an objective pronoun that is commonly used as an object in a sentence?

For example: Whom do you want to meet? 

In the above sentence, who is waiting or the object whom? In simple terms, to replace him, her or them in a sentence use whom.

Likewise, who is a subjective pronoun used to refer to the subject of the sentence. In the same above example, who is the subject that’s waiting for whom? In simple terms, to replace he, she or I, use who. 

Let us understand with the help of examples:

Who wants to go on leave?

Who came up with this idea?

Here, the subject is performing the act in the sentences.

On whom is the story based?

Whom will you trust?

I don’t know whom to choose.

In the above examples, the act is performed on the object whom.