whomever

Usage notes

• Who is a subject pronoun. Whom is an object pronoun. To determine whether a particular sentence uses a subject or an object pronoun, rephrase it to use she/he or her/him instead of who, whom; if you use she, then you use the subject pronoun who; if you use her, then you use the object pronoun.

• Who can also be used as an object pronoun, especially in informal writing and speech (hence one hears not only whom are you waiting for? but also who are you waiting for?), and whom may be seen as (overly) formal; in some dialects and contexts, it is hardly used, even in the most formal settings. As an exception to this, fronted prepositional phrases almost always use whom, e.g. one usually says with whom did you go?, not *with who did you go?. However, dialects where whom is infrequently used usually avoid fronting prepositional phrases in the first place, except for in fossilised phrases.

• The use of who as an object pronoun is proscribed by many authorities, but is frequent nonetheless.

Related terms

• whom
• whichever
• whoever

Translations