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Anonymous Posted 12 years ago
Grammar

Who Versus Whom

I found an online test that claimed the proper use of who/whom in the following sentence:

Immediately suspicious of her brother, who she supposed it was, Anne paused to hear what he was telling the stranger.

My reasoning is that 'who supposed it was' could be restructured as 'she supposed it was him', making 'whom' the appropriate word choice as the object of the sentence.

Thanks in advance for the help.
  

Top answer

Anonymous My reasoning is that 'who supposed it was' could be restructured as 'she supposed it was him', making 'whom' the appropriate word choice as the object of the sentence. Your reasoning is correct in formal English. However, present day English is losing the inflection of "who," which just continues the evolution of our language in losing inflections.

— AlpheccaStars

  • Anonymous My reasoning is that 'who supposed it was' could be restructured as 'she supposed it was him', making 'whom' the appropriate word choice as the object of the sentence.
  • Your reasoning is correct in formal English.
  • However, present day English is losing the inflection of "who," which just continues the evolution of our language in losing inflections.
  • The inflections of the pronouns are vestigial remains of a once highly-inflected language called Old English.
  • Notice that we say: Who did you send it to?
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4 Answers
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AnonymousMy reasoning is that 'who supposed it was' could be restructured as 'she supposed it was him', making 'whom' the appropriate word choice as the object of the sentence.
Your reasoning is correct in formal English. However, present day English is losing the inflection of "who," which just continues the evolution of our language in losing inflections. T
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I think that 'who' is the right choice, regardless of register. Even if you restructured that part as 'she supposed it was him', very formal usage would still call for a subject pronoun after the linking verb.
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AnonymousMy reasoning is that 'who supposed it was' could be restructured as 'she supposed it was him', making 'whom' the appropriate word choice as the object of the sentence.
The correct form is who. The pronouns he and who have different rules for case assignment. Whom is possible only when it is an object of a verb
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AnonymousMy reasoning is that 'who supposed it was' could be restructured as 'she supposed it was him', making 'whom' the appropriate word choice as the object of the sentence.
All that amounts to 'she supposed it was him/whom', but when the 'whom' moves from "after the verb" (was), to "before the verb", it becomes 'who'. Who is it? It is him.
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