Our local newspaper (Northern Life) has the following sentence in their current editorial:
"He's a hardworking councillor whom I believe cares about his ward, his city and his constituents, but with all due respect to him, he's mistaken."
It is my opinion that the writer should have used "who". If the sentence was "He's a hardworking councillor whom I believe" then "whom" would be correct. What is your opinion?
The way I see it, it should be "who" and "I believe" should be set off in commas. "Who" is the subject of the verb "cares."
No doubt about it, it is just as you both say. This is a very common hypercorrection. If someone says to you out of the blue "I see the word whom used in a sentence," without further information, you could quip that it is being used incorrectly and you would be right most of the time.
Thank you Dick and Glenn. I do appreciate your comments. What made this finding interesting is the fact that the editorial was written by the Editor of the newspaper.
Thanks for taking the time to share this, I feel strongly about it and love learning more on this topic.