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Which of these sentences is correct?

It is he I relate to most of all.

Or,

It is him I relate to most of all.

I believe that in neither of the two sentences do the words "him" or "he" act as a relative pronoun, for the simple reason that they are not relative pronouns. Instead, both sentences have an implicit relative pronoun. The case of he/him should depend on other considerations, such as, the proper case after the linking verb, "is".

It should be simply a matter of which is more correct,

It is he

Or,

It is him

My Latin education would have me pick the former. But my knowledge of colloquial English tells me that the phrase, "it was him", is commonly used. Thus, I do not know. I hope these words help explain my reasoning, without making my reader more confused. I would be interested to know what you grammar gurus think of my first two sentences. Which is correct?

ktm5124
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1 Answers1

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'It is he' sounds very formal.

'It is him' is grammatically correct and is in common usage.

HE is used for subjects and predicate nominatives.

HIM is used for objects of preposition, direct objects and indirect objects.

You could rephrase the sentence: I relate to him most of all.

Chris M
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    Surely not. There's no rule of English grammar requiring a nominative form where a pronoun is complement of "be". – BillJ Feb 15 '17 at 18:48
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    @BillJ Is that really true? In Latin, it is surely the case that a nominative form is required after after a "to be" verb. – ktm5124 Feb 15 '17 at 18:56
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    @ktm5124 Latin is not English. – eijen Feb 15 '17 at 18:57
  • @ktm5124 In Latin, yes, but not in English. – BillJ Feb 15 '17 at 18:58
  • Yes, sorry you're correct, I've modified the answer. I was misled by a website www.grammatically.com – Chris M Feb 15 '17 at 19:23
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    @eijen This is a snarky and unconstructive comment. – ktm5124 Feb 15 '17 at 20:49
  • My point is that you shouldn't abstract a case system from a quite distantly related language to modern English, where we hang onto the vestiges of Germanic declensions. – eijen Feb 15 '17 at 22:58
  • ... You shouldn't even rely on archaic precedents as governing acceptability. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 15 '17 at 23:15
  • Surely as long as "it is he" is still considered correct, it begs the question of whether it is more correct than "it is him"? Using "he" sounds formal because such usage is older, I assume? So at some point, "him" was incorrect: using "he" has been correct for a longer period of time. – lukeuser Mar 25 '21 at 22:05
  • @lukeuser The default usage of 'beg the question' not being the modern 'invite/prompt the question', using it that way invites unnecessary confusion (violating a Gricean maxim). // 'It is he' is less correct than 'It's him' nowadays. A certain Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, who co-authored what many consider to be the greatest work on English grammar, advises that one should not entertain people using 'It is he' etc. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 24 '21 at 19:21
  • @EdwinAshworth What does that involve precisely, not entertaining people who use (for instance) "it is he"? If one understands what these people mean by "it is he", then they have achieved their purpose. ¶ When you refer to correctness, this invites the question of how you are measuring it—frequency of use perhaps? – lukeuser Nov 25 '21 at 21:20
  • Mainly, listening to the advice of people whose judgement is likely to be trustworthy in these matters. Pullum, for instance, is perhaps peerless in the realm of English syntax. But many respected contributors on ELU have voiced opinions that "It is I" is weird/affected/totally out of step nowadays. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 26 '21 at 11:51