Whomever

Question

"The four team leaders, whomever the committe selects, will be at tomorrow's meeting."Does "whomever" mean the committe selects all  the four team leaders?

GPY · Accepted Answer

Yes.

Anonymous · Answer

The four team leaders whomever the committe selects will be at tomorrow's meeting.

The four team leaders whom the committe selects will be tomorrow's meeting.

Is there a difference?

GPY · Answer

AnonymousThe four team leaders whomever the committe selects will be at tomorrow's meeting.The four team leaders whom the committe selects will be tomorrow's meeting.Is there a difference?

The first one is poorly punctuated and reads badly. You should be comparing these:

The four team leaders, whomever the committee selects, will be at tomorrow's meeting.
The four team leaders whom the committee selects will be at tomorrow's meeting.

These are saying broadly the same thing, but the first sentence draws more attention to the fact that the identity of the team leaders is presently unknown (at least to the writer), and that the committee can choose whomever it pleases.

Spelling: committee

GPY · Answer

GPYThe four team leaders, whomever the committee selects, will be at tomorrow's meeting.The four team leaders whom the committee selects will be at tomorrow's meeting.

By the way, this is also possible (non-defining relative clause rather than defining relative clause makes a slight difference):

The four team leaders, whom the committee selects, will be at tomorrow's meeting.

Whomever

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