0

I am doing some proofreading and have a question. In the following line of a poem, should it be who or whom? It's talking about monsters and the fact that they have a lot of options as to who they choose to eat so they can grow larger.

The line:

So many decisions of who to choose so they can grow,

Craig
  • 11
  • 3
  • 3
    Monsters, and poets, have free rein to break rules. Proofreading a poem is one thankless task. – Yosef Baskin Oct 26 '22 at 13:55
  • "Limitations are deadening; to limit oneself is a form of suicide;, to limit another is a form of murder; to limit poetry is a Hiroshima of the human spirit. DANGER! RADIATION!" - T. Robbins – John Lawler Oct 26 '22 at 15:36
  • 1
    @JohnLawler There are pros and cons in this philosophy: I am being reminded of a columnist who once wrote, in contradiction to William Cowper, that variety is the spice of death. – LPH Oct 26 '22 at 16:28

3 Answers3

3

Both are correct most of the time but "whom" is formal. In the words of CoGEL (1985 edition, § 6.35), whom can be avoided altogether in informal style.

When the pronoun follows a preposition and that it is a prepositional complement the form "whom" is more regularly used. Fot instance, you say normally

  • "This is the person who you spoke to.",

but

  • "This is the person to who you spoke."

is not correct (unacceptable in British English).

In the words of CoGEL (1985 edition, § 6.35), the reason is that there is a stylistic incompatibility between the preposition + relative pronoun construction (to whom), which is rather formal, and the use of who rather than whom as prepositional complement (who … to), which is informal.

However, your sentence is not of the sort discussed above; "who" is not the prepositional complement of "of", instead "whom to choose so they can grow" is. Consequently, "who" is a possibility, albeit the style will be informal.

  • So many decisions of who to choose so they can grow

Formal

  • So many decisions of whom to choose so they can grow
LPH
  • 20,841
  • Broadly speaking I agree with this, but strictly speaking I'm pretty certain pedants wouldn't accept your first example This is the person who* you spoke to. The "formal rules" are unaffected by the fact of moving the preposition to the end of the utterance. It's just that in practice* we've tended to abandon *whom* in almost all contexts except those where it's immediately preceded by *to. But to true grammarians, it should be This is the person who you spoke to*. – FumbleFingers Oct 26 '22 at 18:10
  • @FumbleFingers Well, you invoke true grammar, but what do you think about this ngram, admitting you consider as true actual usage? – LPH Oct 26 '22 at 18:31
  • I think that chart confirms my point. In Victorian times, "strict grammar" was more rigorously applied, so it was nearly always *whom you spoke to, not who. In principle the who/whom* distinction is only determined by whether it's subject or object. But in practice that's too complicated a rule for most ordinary people, so they just decide on the basis of whether the relative pronoun is preceded by preposition *to* or not. So people almost always get it "right" so long as they avoid allowing the preposition to be moved to the end of the utterance... – FumbleFingers Oct 27 '22 at 11:10
  • ...see this chart showing that if it's re-sequenced to *to whom you spoke, the "incorrect" version to who you spoke* is so rare it doesn't even figure on the usage chart. – FumbleFingers Oct 27 '22 at 11:12
1

Who is a relative pronoun that works much like a subjective pronoun. On the other hand, Whom is a relative pronoun that works much like an objective pronoun. They mean the same thing and it is just a technicality. Using who in spoken English is fine.

To make it simpler, I always suggest students replace who or whom by he or him. If the word him is appropriate, then whom, otherwise who.

Examples:

Who picks whom. -> He picks him. You sent the messages to whom. -> You sent the messages to him.

There are exceptions, but in general you should use whom after prepositions:

The children to whom I gave the toys. Who is behind whom? At whom are you mad? With whom did you go out? More commonly Spoken -> Who did you go out with?

Hope that helps!

Maurício Avellar
  • 11
0

So many decisions whom to choose so they can grow

or

So many decisions, whom to choose so they can grow

banuyayi
  • 1,900