r/mildlyinfuriating • u/Upstairs_Cash8400 • 2d ago

English for Beginners

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

8.7k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

445 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

25

u/EnigmaFrug0817 2d ago

“Who” and “Whom” isn’t actually that hard

It’s related to the answer to the question.

“Who is there?” -> “He is there!”

“Whom do you want to go for lunch with?” -> “I want to go to lunch with him!”

13

u/Ok_Builder_4225 2d ago

Gonna be honest, I just use "who" for both and be done with it. "Whom" sounds archaic, even if technically correct.

7

u/Nevermore_Novelist 2d ago

I'm forever looking up when to use "that" and "which", because it does make a difference... and I can never remember. Same with "who" and "whom".

3

u/blewawei 1d ago

It sometimes does, sometimes doesn't. "The shoes that/which I saw yesterday" is fine either way, but if it's a non-defining clause (i.e. the information is an extra, not essential) then we tend to only use which; "The shoes, which I saw yesterday, are..."

5

u/ManWhoIsDrunk 1d ago

Good example, but you shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition.

With whom would you want to go for lunch?

3

u/blewawei 1d ago

Why shouldn't you end a sentence with a preposition? We speak English, not Latin.

1

u/Z3DR0NF0RC3 1d ago

that rule was made up by posh people

4

u/random_fucktuation 1d ago

Ending sentences with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.

1

u/EnigmaFrug0817 1d ago

It’s simplified 😭

2

u/rda1991 1d ago

This is such a weird little easter egg in English. It's easy for me to grasp, because my first and second languages conjugate similarly to this, with suffixes. The rest of English doesn't though, so I get why especially natives might find it odd or unnecessary.

Having briefly looked it up, it is indeed claimed to be a non-native conjugation element.

1

u/devon_336 1d ago

I’m learning German (as a native English speaker) and recently found out that “whom” is one of the few instances where the dative case still exists in English. By and large though, English uses prepositions instead especially in informal speech.