Whom or Who

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is George Broleski. I’m in Encinitas, California.

Hiya, George.

Hi, George. What’s up?

Well, I am a physician. A good friend of mine that I communicate with by emails ends all of his emails with the following. There are some patients whom we cannot cure, but there are none we cannot help, cannot comfort, and none that we cannot harm.

So I really applaud the sentiment, but I’m a little uncomfortable with the whom. For me, whom almost always is preceded by to whom or for whom or about whom. So I felt a little more comfortable with who we cannot cure, but even more comfortable with that we cannot cure. But I’d like to know what you all think about it.

Or you could always knock out the who, whom, that altogether and just say there are some patients we cannot cure.

There you go.

I thought of that, too.

Oh, you did.

Okay.

This is another physician?

Yes, another physician.

-huh.

Too often, I think, physicians forget about the we cannot harm part. You know, especially primary care doctors are so pressured these days to see people every 10 minutes, and they just rush, rush, rushing in and rushing out. I think, you know, there’s a danger of mistakes being made.

So let’s talk about these email signatures, because there are some patients whom we cannot cure, but there are none we cannot help?

Yeah.

There are some patients whom we cannot cure, comma, but there are none we cannot help, comma, cannot comfort, comma, and none we cannot harm.

-huh.

And so you’re wondering if the who, whom should be who, right?

Or, yeah.

Right.

Now, that sentence is correct as it is. There are some patients whom we cannot cure.

That’s right. Absolutely. Because you’d mentioned that you’re used to seeing whom with T-O or to, right?

Or for or about, you know, something in front of it.

Yeah, and that’s correct. And that’s because those prepositions tend to indicate that the word following them is an object of a verb. And that’s what’s happening here. The patients are the object of the verb cure. You cure the patients. So therefore whom is called for.

Yeah, one way to think about who and whom is to compare it to he and him. He is a subject, him is the object, who is a subject, whom is the object. And in this case, we cannot cure, would you say we cannot cure him or we cannot cure he?

Well, I cannot cure him.

Right.

So him and whom are a pair and he and who are a pair. So we would go with whom here. Does that make sense?

Well, good.

Then I’m not going to, you know, I was going to write him and say, look, maybe you better check that out. But I’m glad I didn’t.

I think, George, I can tell where you’ve got your reluctance about this, and this is because whom has fallen so far by the wayside that who seems to be more appropriate. We’re more used to hearing it, so therefore we believe that it’s more correct, and a lot of times it isn’t.

Yeah, these two—

Yeah, so whom kind of falling by the wayside?

Yeah, even the most conservative authorities will acknowledge that whom has disappeared so far that it’s not even necessarily called for in a situation like this. But you’re still not wrong to use it.

Okay. Well, that’s good to know.

Thanks, by the way, for sharing the good medical sentiment.

Thank you so much for calling, too.

All right. Bye-bye.

Thank you for your help. Bye.

Bye-bye.

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