Korean Job Discussion Forums

[raewon]

I've asked about who/whom before, but I still can't get it right. I'm not even sure how to apply the he/him test to the following sentence:

Between these years, they killed thousands of people whom they thought were witches.

I think I must have a mental block when it comes to whom/who. I'd like to get over it for good.

Thanks if you can help with this one.

[toadkillerdog]

The use of whom is archaic. Aside from a standard salutation I can think of no reason to ever use it.

[BigBuds]

[schwa]

[rainism]

[gingercat]

[rainism]

hmm.. gingercat's explanation is logical and reasonable enough to for me to change my initial disposition.

as I think about it more deeply. he's a 100% correct.. the presence of a preposition is the key.

[gingercat]

I wouldn't write the sentence that way anyhow. It would be better stated:

Between these years, they killed thousands of people suspected of witchery.

Between these years, suspected witches were killed in thousands.

[rainism]

[Chokse]

Actually, here's how it works. "Whom" (look, I started a sentence with whom!!) takes the place of the object of the verb and "who" takes the place of the subject of the verb (both in the relative clause).

In the example given, the only part that matters is this part of the sentence:

"people whom they thought were witches."

In this sentence, we are only concerned with the verb "were" and whether "people" is the subject or object of that verb, because in this sentence, the word "whom" is standing in for "people" in this relative (secondary) clause.

If we were to write it out completely we would say, "they thought the people were witches." As you can see, "people" is the subject of "were", so we would use "who" to represent "people".

Therefore the sentence would read, "people who they thought were witches."

Here is another example:

"The woman, whom I met at the party, called me the other day."

Though this might sound strange, it is grammatically correct. In the relative clause, the verb is "met". "I" is the subject of met and "the woman" is the object of the verb. Because the "who/whom" is taking the place of "the woman", and she is the object of "met", we would use "whom" as the relative pronoun.

On the other hand, we could have a sentence like this:

Jennifer, who was my best friend in college, got a job at NASA.

In this case, "Jennifer" is the subject of the verb "was" in the relative clause (Jennifer was my best friend in college) so we would use the relative pronoun "who" to take the place of "Jennifer" in the relative clause.

It really has nothing to do with prepositions (Notice that in the examples above, neither "who" nor "whom" is connected to a preposition). The only rule about prepositions is that they should not come at the end of a sentence (or a relative clause) because prepositions require objects. So in this example:

"There is the man about whom I told you," the preposition needs to be moved in front of "whom". By grammar rules, you should not say, "whom I told you about," because the preposition would not have an object. Instead you carry the preposition with the object of the preposition: "I told you about him (whom)". We would move "about him (whom)" to the relative pronoun position, thereby moving both the preposition and its object.

Hope this clears it up.

[denverdeath]

Big thing is to determine whether it's a subjective case or an objective case...


Subjective case example...

(From Handbook for Writers) The newspapers predicted
who would vote.

...because using the drop test has She would vote. not Her would vote.

Objective case example(from same source)...

Volunteers go to senior citizens centers hoping to enroll people whom others have ignored.

...because using the drop test has Others have ignored them. not Others have ignored they.

In your example...

Between these years, they killed thousands of people whom they thought were witches.

Confusing, but They thought they were witches. would be better.

Basically restating what Chokse already has.

[rainism]

those explanations are really good guys, though I can't quite think it thru that way and it's already giving me a headache

however..

my "anteanne" were correct on the 2 examples:


"The woman, whom I met at the party, called me the other day."

Jennifer, who was my best friend in college, got a job at NASA.

I could never explain how/why like you guys did. Just understanding your explanation is giving me a headache

[Chokse]

Think about it this way. A relative clause requires a relative pronoun (who, whom, whose, that, which) at the beginning of the clause (or at least before the verb in the relative clause). The relative pronoun usually represents the subject of the main (primary) clause, though it can represent the object of the primary clause.

Therefore, you need to identify the verb that is used in the relative clause (the clause that contains the relative pronoun). Once you have identified this verb, you check to see if the relative pronoun is the subject (the doer) or the object (the receiver) of that verb.

Let's look at the two examples used before.

"The woman, whom I met at the party, called me the other day."

In this sentence, "the woman" is the subject of the primary verb. The primary clause is "The woman called me the other day." The relative clause is, "I met the woman at the party." In the relative clause, we use a relative pronoun to represent "the woman", rather than say "the woman" twice in the same sentence, just as you would use a pronoun rather than say a person's name over and over again. Instead, you would switch to "he", or "she".

So, you would not want to say, "The woman, the woman I met at the party, called me the other day." Instead, you want to change "the woman" in the relative clause to a relative pronoun. In this case, the woman is not the doer of the verb "met". I am the doer of that action. I met the woman. She is the object of the verb, which is why you would use "whom" to relate back to the woman.


In this example - "Jennifer, who was my best friend in college, got a job at NASA." - Jennifer is the subject of the primary clause, and she is also the subject of the relative clause. She (Jennifer) was my best friend in college. "She" is doing the action of being (to be verb: was) my friend. Therefore, in this relative clause, "who" is used to show that Jennifer is the subject of the verb in this clause. So, "Jennifer, Jennifer was my best friend in college, got a job at NASA", becomes, "Jennifer, who (subject of was) was my best friend in college, got a job at NASA."

[rainism]

hey thanks.. I think I understand it better now.

though my head still hurts.. especially when thinking about something called the "relative clause".

of course, the fact it's nearly 2 am may have something do with my headache as well

[denverdeath]