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have you ever been talking to someone
and found yourself needing to use the
word who or whom but you're not sure
which is the correct word well I'm going
to let you know how you can decide which
word to use first we need a little bit
of a grammar lesson to understand the
difference between who and whom we have
to understand the difference between a
subject and an object well here's a
famous example let's look at the
sentence for whom does the Bell toll to
figure out which is the subject and
which is the object I suggest starting
with the verb first so here our verb is
the word toll because that's the action
so then who or what is our actor or the
subject well that would be the bell so
now we've got our subject and our verb
the next part of speech we need to find
in the sentence is the object and the
object essentially is a noun or pronoun
that's receiving the action so we have
to ask ourself who is the action falling
on well in this case the Bell is tolling
for whom making this our object
so something that's really important to
remember is that who is a subject that
means whenever you see the word who it's
driving the sentence it's performing the
action in the sentence whom on the other
hand is an object which means it's not
the actor in the sentence it's receiving
the action so to decide whether you need
who or whom you have to decide if you're
looking for a subject or an object let's
revisit the example for whom does the
Bell toll again we're using whom because
it is the object of the sentence I'm
going to teach you something I like to
call the M trick which can help you
decide whether you need to use the word
who or whom substitute the word him
which also has an M so remember whom and
him because they both have an M function
the same way in a sentence and who and
he neither of which have an M function
the same way in a sentence so in this
case you can plug this in for whom does
the Bell toll it tolls for him him and
whom both have an M so you know that
you're using the right version so I've
given you an example of how to decide
when to use the word whom I'd also like
to give you an example of when you might
use the word hoo let's say we want to
rephrase our sentence instead of asking
for whom does the Bell toll
let's ask who rings the bell well in
this case let's find our verb its rings
and since rings is our action we now
want to find our actors so in this case
our actor or our subject is who so now
we know that we're dealing with a word
that is the subject or the actor of the
sentence it's performing the central
action in the last sentence we had an
object it was receiving the central
action so that's why in this sentence we
choose the word who we don't say whom
rings the bell we say who rings the bell
because we need a subject and you can
use my M trick to make sure that you're
using the correct word in this sentence
as well let's turn it into a statement
and let's substitute the word he for who
and see if it still sounds right he
rings the bell that makes sense it
wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to
say him rings the bell I hope that this
makes it a little clearer the next time
you're trying to decide whether to use
the word who or whom
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