Knowing how to correctly use "who" and "whom" may seem a little out-dated and persnickety, reminiscent of grammar lessons by strict English teachers, but the correct usage remains important when writing in a formal manner. Awareness of the distinction is essential in this respect otherwise you could risk sounding rather pompous, not to mention grammatically confused. So, what is the distinction between "who" and "whom" and how do we use them?

Both words are pronouns but the crucial distinction is that "who" is used as the subject in a sentence, whereas "whom" is the object. Here's an example:

Who paid for the newspaper? Who photocopied the report? Who likes ice-cream?

Here, "who" is the subject in each of the sentences. Now we'll see how "whom" is used when we need to refer to the object of a verb:

To whom does this bag belong? To whom it may concern. Whom do I love the most?

Okay, so we know about subjects and objects, but it can still be tricky to decipher the usage. One way to do this is to ask yourself if the answer to the question is "he" or "him". If you can answer with "he", you need to use "who" and if you can answer with "him", you need to use "whom". This is a straightforward way of remembering how to use "who" or "whom" correctly. Let's see some more examples:

Question: To (who or whom) did the award go?

Answer: It went to him.

Therefore, the correct pronoun for the question is "whom" - to whom did the award go?

Question: (Who or whom) went to the beach?

Answer: He went to the beach.

So, the correct pronoun here is "who" - who went to the beach?

Finally, here is a handy mnemonic to help you remember the distinction between an object and a subject. In the phrase "I love you", the "you" is the object of your love and the object of the sentence. The "I" is the subject. Therefore, it is correct to say "Whom do I love?" because the answer is "you" (whom), the object.

KJ Hutchings is the founder of KJ Language Services, offering editing, writing and proofreading services and advice on how you can make your English language documents the very best they can be. For more information, visit http://www.kjlanguageservices.com/.