( “Whoever may need it” is the clause that is the object of “for.”)īetween you and me, there seems to be some confusion about pronouns when we use compound subjects (“you and me”). We can provide help for whomever may need it. ( ”Whoever is responsible” is the clause that is the object of “find.”) They’ve pledged to find whomever is responsible. ( The entire clause “whoever guesses the correct number…” is the object of “for,” and “whoever” is the subject of that clause.) The prize is for whomever guesses the correct number of peanuts in the jar. ( This is like saying “I shall say him is calling” instead of “I shall say he is calling.”) The following hypercorrections substitute whom or whomever where who or whoever is called for: Very few people will notice or object to substitutions of who for whom such as these-but going the other way might get you into trouble. More commonly, we substitute who for whom in these situations: ( ”We” is the subject of the sentence, and “whom” is the object of “hire”) ![]() ![]() ![]() Whom did you speak to? ( ”You” is actually the subject of the sentence, and “whom” is the object of “to”) Sometimes the “correct” form sounds very stuffy and unnatural: It sometimes seems that whom and whomever are now simply used when people want to sound formal-whether correctly deployed or not.
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