Who VS. Whom

⁉️ Who

📎Is a subject pronoun, used to ask which person does an action or which person is a certain way.

💡Example : Who are you?

⁉️ Whom

📎Is an object pronoun, used to ask which person receives an action .

💡Example : I met a man with whom I used to work.

👩‍🏫Lemme explain with an example❕

Jack   kissed   Jill.

(subject) + (verb) + (object)

📎When we make questions about the subject, we use Who!

💡For example:

Q: Who kissed Jill? (We want to know the subject)

A: Jack kissed Jill.

📎Who is a pronoun. Pronouns replace nouns. Here, ‘Who’ is replacing the noun ‘Jack,’ which is the subject of the sentence.

📎On the other hand, when we make questions about the object, we use Whom. 

💡For example:

Q: Whom did Jack kiss? (We want to know the object of the verb; we want to know received the action of kiss.)

A: Jack kissed Jill.

Who & Whom in Adjective Clauses   

       (Relative Clauses)

👩‍🏫The difference between subject and object pronoun is noticeable when we study adjective clauses. In grammar class, we are told to use ‘whom’ to refer to object relative pronouns (though it doesn’t matter much nowadays). Compare these sentences:

Jack is the man. He kissed Jill.

= Jack is the man who kissed Jill. (We use ‘who’ to replace ‘He’, which was the subject of the second sentence).

Jill is the woman. Jack kissed her.

= Jill is the woman whom Jack kissed. (We use ‘whom’ to replace ‘her’, the object of the verb)

👩‍🏫The reasons are the same: who is a pronoun that replaces a subject, and whom is a pronoun that replaces an object.