Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Chokse]

Restrictive vs non-restrictive has nothing to do with the use of who/whom. A restrictive clause is a relative clause (adjective clause) that restricts the meaning of the noun it modifies. Commas are not used with restrictive clauses.

For example, "A person who tells lies should not be trusted."

In this sentence, the restrictive nature of the clause has no effect on the use of who/whom. In the sentence above, "who" refers to "a person", and "a person" is the subject of the verb "tells"... a person tells lies, so we use who instead of whom.

While not impossible, it is more uncommon to find the pronoun "whom" used in a restrictive clause as it almost always follows a comma.

You should note that the use of that/which is very much dependent on restrictive vs non-restrictive clauses. I didn't mention it earlier because the OP was only asking about who/whom, so I was trying to stay on point.

"That" is used as a relative pronoun in restrictive clauses, and therefore does not follow a comma. "Which" is used as a relative pronoun in non-restrictive clauses, and always follows a comma.

It's a lot to wrap your head around, but if you read over it a few times, I think you'll start to get it. Once you do understand it, it kind of becomes second nature when you are writing.

[meangradin]

As has been stated "who" uses a subject pronoun (acts as a subject of the verb) while "whom" (acts as an object) takes an object pronoun.

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

In this example, Which one makes sense: "they thought they (subject pronoun)/ them(object pronoun) were witches. Clearly, it is "they" (a subject pronoun) , so use "who."

However, in the example, "The woman, whom I met at the party, called me the other day." What makes sense: I met "she/her?" Clearly "her" (an object pronoun), so use use "whom"

[edwardcatflap]

I've got to agree with toadkillerdog and schwa on this one, let 'whom' die a slow death. Not ending sentences with prepositions as Chokse mentions below is pretty much on its way out now too

[Chokse]

While you may think it no longer matters, the who/whom issue, as well as things like dangling modifiers, prepositions with no object, split infinitives, etc. all very much matter on the SAT writing exam, and they don't appear to be leaving the exam any time soon.

While I agree that for most Koreans, or for people who have graduated from college, these grammar rules probably don't matter very much.

However, they are still a very important part of the SAT writing exam, so kids who plan to study in the US will need to know these grammar rules.

[edwardcatflap]

[Chokse]

Yes, there are questions like that on the SAT, though not exactly the same. Instead, a sentence will have A, B, C, or D written below certain words in the sentence (or E is an option if there is no error). Sometimes the error is a who/whom and the corresponding letter must be chosen to answer correctly.

It is also found in the other section (long answer mistakes) but not as frequently as in the individual word mistakes section.