Whom you gonna call about discrepancies regarding who and whom? Grant and Martha, that’s who. Although whom to contact is a correct use of whom, it’s fast becoming obsolete, with growing numbers of people viewing it as elitist, effete, or both. But fair warning: Do not correct someone on this unless you’re sure you have your facts straight! This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “The Classic Case of Who vs. Whom”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Laura calling from Athens, Ohio.
Hi, Laura, welcome.
Hey there, what’s up? How can we help?
Well, we have a directory here at my workplace that, rather than just being a standard alphabetical by last name, is by what people do. And it was called the Whom to Call About What directory. And when I was given responsibility for this directory, a faculty member came to me and said, this really should be who to call; whom is not correct.
A faculty member?
Mm—
Not in the English department.
No, not in the English department. And so I did a quick Google search and found a couple of grammar checkers, and neither one was marked as incorrect. So I sort of started wondering about it and then put it on the back burner. And then somebody else came to me and said, this is wrong. I’m pretty sure this is wrong. And my background is actually in English. My aunt was an English teacher. We were always corrected on our grammar when I was little. And so my thing is I realize that in common speech people rarely use whom, but I’m pretty sure in this instance, whom is technically correct. So I guess I’m just wondering.
Well, you’re absolutely right that it’s technically correct. I mean, that’s the way that so many of us were taught. Yeah, whom to call about what is absolutely perfect English grammar. Great. But. There’s always a big but, and you touched upon it. The big but is, and it’s a big Colapygian but, I don’t know about the callum. The problem with this is that most people are so unused to who and whom being differentiated that they think of whom as only a very elite or sophisticated form and not a standalone word in its own right. They think you use whom if you’re trying to sound important or fancy and not because it’s the direct object of a verb. And that’s the problem that Laura and I have because we’re not trying to be fancy, are we?
No, I’m not trying to be fancy at all. I’m trying to be right. Trying to be accurate and trying to do what you were taught, that you spent a lot of effort learning, right? Or maybe not so much with this rule. It doesn’t take that much effort to master it. Part of the thing is the way that these people approached me. If they had come to say, you know, whom sounds a little formal, people don’t really use it anymore, okay, fine. But telling me I’m wrong, that gave me pause.
Yeah, miscorrections. That’s the bane of everyone’s existence if they care at all about language. And Laura, did they give you any evidence or did they just say this just feels wrong or this is just flat out wrong? I mean, what did they say exactly?
Well, one of the women said she didn’t really say anything. She just said it was wrong and I need to change it. And the other one said, well, my mother and my sister are grammar nerds and they went into something about participles and blah, blah, blah. And I don’t really know what they were talking about. But I’m pretty sure that it should be who.
Really? Whom is correct, but you’re going to continue to get these people who think it’s wrong, and they may or may not talk to you about it, and they may be judging you because they don’t understand English well enough to make the right call on that. And this is not anything that you can save them from. You can’t educate them all one at a time. Even if you had a national radio show, you would find it really difficult to consistently get people to use whom when whom is called for.
I know. I have to say that as much as I’ve held the line over the decades, it’s getting more and more easy to think about throwing in the towel.
It is. That line seems to get blurrier and blurrier, and certainly language evolves, and sooner or later we probably just won’t use whom at all.
I think you’re right. Don’t tell me that I’m wrong when I’m not wrong.
Right. Exactly. That’s the main thing here. I mean, we could reframe this instead of a grammar question as a manners question.
Yeah, yeah. If you’re going to go to somebody and correct them, you better come with facts. You better come with authorities. You better come with resources that you can explain to them and show why you’re right. And not just because you’re working by the seat of your pants.
Right. So I hope we’ve helped you some. I hope you can sleep at night now.
Yes, absolutely. You have given me everything that I wanted. Thank you.
We aim to please. Thanks for calling, Laura. Good luck.
Thank you.
Thanks. Bye-bye.
Who and whom? How many times do we answer this question?
Oh, my gosh. In email, on social media, face-to-face, and, you know, when we do live events.
Oh, my gosh. Yeah, every time, right? On the air, we’ve handled it quite a few times. We could do a whole show every week just about who and whom.
Shall we?
No. You think we could get a grant for that?
I think we’d lose a listenership for that. I think 99% of our audience would stop listening after the second week.
Whom you going to call? 877-929-9673.
