2

Possible Duplicate:
What's the rule for using “who” or “whom”?

Please help me with the grammar here. An explanation would be extra nice, that way I can get it right myself next time.

"There were ten people, five of who/whom collected hats."

I understand that if the "who" is the object, it becomes "whom", and if it's the subject it stays "who". From this page (yeah I'm a dummy) However, I am confused by "five of who" - I expect it to be the subject of "collected", but it somehow references the "ten people" and that leaves me clueless.

Community
  • 1
Pieter Müller
  • 155
  • Of. The rest is irrelevant. You don't say "of I", "of she", or "of we". Likewise, you don't use "of who" in formal writing. (You might hear it in everyday speech, where whom is generally on its way out, but even there, "of whom" is not incorrect.) – RegDwigнt Sep 23 '11 at 09:51

1 Answers1

2

Whenever you would use the objective case of the pronoun (them, him, etc.), you would use the objective whom.

Whenever you would use the subjective pronoun (they, he, etc.), you would use the subjective who.

"Five of them collected hats" is correct, not "five of they collected hats."

Thus, five of whom is also going to be correct.