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Take the sentence:

Who is the right person to turn to?

I'm not sure whether who or whom should be used in this position.

tchrist
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bookends
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  • For some reason, you questions causes reruns of Abbott and Costello’s famously hilarious Who’s on First? skit to run through my mind. – tchrist Apr 16 '13 at 03:50

4 Answers4

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Here is the easy way to figure out which one is correct. If you answer the question (or substitute the statement) with 'he' and it makes sense, use 'who.' If 'him' makes sense, use 'whom.' 'Whom' and 'him' both have the letter m so that is how to remember that they go together.

"Whom did you ask?" "I asked him."

"Who answered the question?" "He answered the question."

"Whom is the right person to turn to?" "Him is the right person to turn to." => INCORRECT

"Who is the right person to turn to." "He is the right person to turn to." => CORRECT

Miss Ti
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4

Sure, it's fine.

In fact,
Whom is the right person to turn to?
sounds downright silly, and
To whom is the right person to turn?
is even sillier, if possible.
No native English speaker would ever say either one, at least not in the USA.

The best advice about the use of whom is

Don't bother to use whom. Ever, at all.
Whom is dead. It's an ex-pronoun. It's joined the bleedin' choir invisible.

John Lawler
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  • Thanks for replying. Not sure if you have watched this movie, but this quote seems really cool to me.

    "But to whom, might I ask, am I speaking?" -V for Vendetta.

    What do you think, John?

     – bookends Apr 16 '13 at 02:50
  • I didn't say people didn't use whom. I just said that was the best advice to people about how to use it -- Don't. If you do use it, be sure you understand exactly how it's sposta be used, and why, and in particular have a good reason for why you're using it now instead of who. Because the use of whom is, in a word, fraught. – John Lawler Apr 16 '13 at 02:56
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    Using who for whom never bothered anyone (well, I hope) but the reverse is pretentiously hypercorrective — and therefore annoying in the extreme. Considering that not even published authors and professional editors seem to manage to reliably and correctly select one over the other, it seems best to avoid whom altogether. If I read one more “tell whomever is going” or “it’s from whomever figured it out first”, I think I’m going to scream. Better by far that it be altogether banished than that it be used willy nilly with neither sense nor meaning, nor distinction. – tchrist Apr 16 '13 at 03:37
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    I always suspected "Lawler" was a pseudonym for "Cleese." Now I'm sure! – John M. Landsberg Apr 16 '13 at 07:53
  • I still use whom, at least in writing. I might not in speech but inwardly I feel bad for dumbing down. –  Apr 16 '13 at 14:51
  • Sorry to hear it; but progress always seems painful for some. I personally would prefer it if English were as inflected as Spanish; pronouncing personal pronouns properly at speed is my particular bête noir. But I digress. – John Lawler Apr 16 '13 at 14:57
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    Yes, dead. Need not be used. In the 1970s I was surprised to find this point of view among ESL texts. But now I (sometimes reluctantly) admit the language changes. – GEdgar Apr 16 '13 at 17:47
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    I didn't expect some kind of Spanish imposition. – Edwin Ashworth Apr 16 '13 at 22:47
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    It is true that, in questions, who is killing off whom in everyday conversation. But who cannot replace whom in the sentences such as the following: The school has 50 teachers, most of whom are bilingual. And whom cannot be replaced by who in relative clauses starting with a preposition: He is someone for whom I have great admiration. – Shoe Jun 19 '13 at 20:36
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    The school has 50 teachers, most of who are bilingual. He is someone who I have great admiration for. Perhaps not standard English, but you can substitute whom quite easily with who and still be understood. – Mari-Lou A Jun 19 '13 at 23:04
  • But the point is, should you? – Kaiser Octavius Jun 20 '13 at 00:36
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    @Mary-Lou. Well, we could often get by with grunts and gestures if comprehensibility is the only necessity. The point is that in certain contexts the reader might react negatively if the writer uses who instead of whom. English language exams are one such context and application letters are another. And while you can certainly avoid whom by pushing the preposition to the end of the clause, you might not wish to do so if the clause is long: He is someone who I have had the greatest respect but very little admiration since my childhood for. – Shoe Jun 20 '13 at 04:56
  • Or you can just say that and let somebody else worry about the Objective Case. – John Lawler Jun 20 '13 at 13:53
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    -1 terrible answer. Oversimplification of the language is not a good thing and can lead to ambiguities. – Jez Jun 20 '13 at 15:01
  • Ambiguities are unavoidable and plentiful. They're a feature of all language everywhere. And going by the real rules is not oversimplification; making up silly rules about "correctness" is oversimplification. – John Lawler May 22 '20 at 15:57
1

I agree with the previous answers in that "whom" is mostly being phased out of regular usage, so I would go with using "who" in this type of sentence. Some further support for "who" over "whom" here is that you are using "who" as a subject (and "whom" is only objective). Here, as in many instances, "is" is a linking verb; it links the description ("the right person to talk to") to the subject ("who"), meaning that both parts, basically, serve the same grammatical function.

For example, if I were to say "I am Michelle," then "I" and "Michelle" are equivalent. The reason your example is a little trickier is due mostly to the fact that we switch word order around in sentence structure, and that's enough to throw anybody off!

Michelle
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To whom should I turn?

Ex-pronoun, indeed. :)

tchrist
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Allen S. Rout
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