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Specifically, in this sentence:

… of the people who suffered early trauma, there were some whom it affected in such a way that they …

(I've mercifully only included part of the sentence)

I can't seem to figure out if it should be who or whom. I understand the whole 'subject/object' concept, but that does not seem to clarify what is correct in this particular sentence. Professor Google seems to not know, either.

All I know is whom sounds terribly incorrect here, even if it is correct.

choster
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Thomas
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  • "Who" acts, and the action is received by "whom". – niamulbengali Dec 22 '20 at 16:51
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    60 years ago at grammar school, 'who' would have been marked wrong in your example (it affected them, not they ... objective case). But nowadays, 90+% of practised speakers would use 'who' as the near-universal replacement for 'whom' (and many of them would be sensible and use it in print too). – Edwin Ashworth Dec 22 '20 at 16:51
  • The easy way - just decide whether it's Q: *Who suffered?* A: *He suffered* (nominative, someone *did* something) OR Q: *Whom did it affect?* A: It affected him** (objective, something *happened to* someone). The *really* easy way - just forget about *whom* completely, and use *who* everywhere. – FumbleFingers Dec 22 '20 at 17:16
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    You say it "sounds terribly incorrect", which is a native speaker judgement. Are you a native speaker? If so, it's worth mentioning in your question, because most questions here are not from natives and there are different standards of "correct" involved. – John Lawler Dec 22 '20 at 17:27
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    If you are somebody who uses whom, and in a context where you might use whom, then whom is what you want here, as it is the object of it affected. Simples. If both of those conditions do not hold, then use who. – Colin Fine Dec 22 '20 at 18:04
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    Yes, sir, Mr. Lawler. Born and raised in the midwest, urban all my life, full education, good vocabulary, and have written 5 novels.The substitution of he/she or her/him seems to not work for this sentence, because the 'whom' being referred to are not defined, they are only 'possible'. It's speculative. I'm not convinced that 'whom it affected' is an object—that can be considered a subjective noun phrase, too. – Thomas Dec 22 '20 at 18:06
  • Who said that "whom it affected" is an object? Syntactically, the pronoun is object of "affected" in the relative clause, so trad grammar has it that "whom" is correct. You know the rest of the story. – BillJ Dec 22 '20 at 18:17
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    @FumbleFingers We were taught the 'm' rule - whom did it affect? Him. – Michael Harvey Dec 22 '20 at 19:02
  • Possibly it's confusing when the object comes before the subject. 'Who am I?' is correct, bc it is a reversal of 'I am who?', which is a syntactical variant of the same exact thought. The subject is still 'I' in either case. That's why 'Who am me?' does not work—I is the subject, even though it comes after the object. – Thomas Dec 22 '20 at 23:31
  • @Thomas What object? There's no object in "Who am I?" "Who" is predicative complement of "be". Note that objects only occur with transitive verbs, not with intransitive ones like copula "be". – BillJ Dec 23 '20 at 07:20

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