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Subject:Re: Who or Whom? From:"Ginsel, Gilda" <GGinsel -at- GFBANK -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 11 Feb 1998 18:51:46 -0600
<<E.g., "Give the book to whomever answers the door." is
wrong. It should be "Give the book to whoever answers
the door.">>
Hmmmm......I think "whomever" is the correct word since the pronoun
takes the objective case in this sentence. It represents the person or
thing that is affected by the action of the subject. It also fits right
in with the "use who for he, she, and they and use whom for him, her,
and them" rule, since it can be recast as "(You) Give the book to
whomever (him, her, them) answers the door." Try this...."me" is the
objective form of the pronoun and "I" is the subjective form. You would
say "Give the book to me" not ''Give the book to I."
But I also agree with the earlier poster that the formality of what you
are writing has a bearing on deciding to use "whom" instead of "who".
