Difference between who and whom

This is part of the difference between series.

The following is a reader submission:

Please detail the difference between “who” and “whom” in the following phrase:

. . . which helped to shape me into (who/whom) I am today.

Carmen

Thanks for writing, Carmen. This is a tricky one. The key to determining whether to use one or the other is determining what is the subject and object in the sentence.

You would use “who” because it is part of the clause “who I am”, in which it is the predicate pronoun to I. “Whom” is used if it is the object in a clause.

The trick is to substitute either “he” or “him” in the clause. If “he” sounds better, use “who”; if “him” sounds better, use “whom”. In this case, one would say “I am he”, not “I am him”.

An alternative would be to use “the person” in place of who/whom, as in: which helped shape me into the person I am today.

I hope that answers your question.

Let me know if you have any grammar questions, and I’ll be sure to post the question and answer here.

By Kim Siever

I am a copywriter and copyeditor. I blog on writing and social media tips mostly, but I sometimes throw in my thoughts about running a small business. Follow me on Twitter at @hotpepper.

4 comments

  3. i’m indonesian and often speak to British-man
    for many of them visit indonesia for vacation. in english of course. most of them use “who” to state “whom” actually. and they use it to speak each to other as if there’s no different between “who” and “whom”. my question is.. is there any occasion where someone may use just “who” to state “whom”?

  4. That’s conversational English for you. There are many grammar rules that are broken in conversational English. In fact, that is one of the reasons I write about grammar on here.

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