A grammar quiz: presented with the question, 'Name a historical figure you would invite to dinner, and why', which of the following is the grammatically correct response? If you're feeling smug, give reasons.
1) Marie Curie – whom I admire for her views on intellectual property and its impact on scientific research
2) Marie Curie – who I admire for her views on intellectual property and its impact on scientific research
I know the answer, because I've just consulted Butterworths' Grammar for Lawyers, an invaluable resource for any grammar nazi.
Send in your answers, and I'll let you know in a couple of days.
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6 comments:
If I was speaking, I would say "who". If I was writing, I would use either probably. I don't get the whole who/whom thing really...would be interested to fnid out what is actually correct.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess 'whom' - it's just a gut feeling though, I don't have any hard and fast grammatical rules to back me up on this.
Incidentally though, if the English language is constantly evolving, and most people consider 'whom' to be a more formal way of saying 'who', it could be argued that at some point in the future, either method will be correct depending on the context it's used in.
Now there's an interesting thought - at what point does a bastardisation of the English tongue become so prevalant that it becomes 'official'?
Hah, I just tried Word, and it couldn't pick up a difference between either of the versions - damn you Clippy!
All I'll say at this point is that there is actually a clear grammatical rule for this situation. It's not really based on a murky formal/informal usage distinction.
Having said that, Grammar for Lawyers notes that in informal writing, 'who' is probably acceptable in all cases where 'whom' could be used.
Alright. It doesn't seem like anyone else is game to have a crack. The correct answer is 'whom'.
The explanation? In this context, both who and whom act as pronouns; that is, they take the place of a noun in the sentence. With me so far? Well, in the sentence 'Marie Curie – whom I admire for her views on intellectual property and its impact on scientific research', 'whom' is standing in for the noun 'Marie Curie'.
Now, put that to one side for a second, and think back to year 8 English. In the sentence 'I hit the ball', there is a subject ('I') acting on an object ('the ball'.)
In the original sentence, Marie Curie is the object. 'I' is the subject (since 'I' admire 'Marie Curie').
When replacing the object, 'whom' should be used. When replacing the subject, 'who' should be used. Thus it would be correct to say:
'Marie Curie - who held strong views on intellectual property...'
Make sense?
yep :-)
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