Who will save whom? Who cares about whom? At The Atlantic, Megan Garber alerts us to the news that "whom" is falling out of fashion. It has been a gradual but inevitable process, somewhat like the heat death of the universe. Whom is creeping slowly out of our vocabulary, trying to avoid notice, like someone crawling up the middle aisle during a movie. People recommend that we take an approach to "whom" similar to the approach Mark Twain took to "very": "Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very'; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be." We can do without "whom." Or can we? The Whos down in Whoville are perfectly safe. But the Whoms, down in Whomville, having staid, WASPy dinners of roast beast and refusing to pass Little Susie Lou Whom a slice unless she uses the subjunctive correctly in her request: They are in grave danger. Whom is struggling. After all, whom is, as numerous writers have noted, the literary equivalent of waving an enormous flag that proclaims you a Stuffy Old Twerp, a Bombastic Blowhard Who Thinks He's In England, or In 1800, Or Possibly Both. You might as well invite people to go fox hunting later and murmur sexist things into a tea service for all the goodwill it will earn you. Whom is no one's favourite object pronoun. All it plays now are the rusty ill-paid gigs of Old-Timey, Vaguely Biblical-Sounding Phrases. For Whom the Bell Tolls. For Of Those to Whom Much Is Given, Much Is Required. To Whom It May Concern. From Whom All Blessings Flow. It pops up now and again on Downton Abbey, but who knows how long that will last, given what "Downton" does to featured characters. Yes, whom is withering. Whither? Who can say. No one says "Whither." Or "whence," for that matter. Or "Codswallop!," but that is unrelated and probably for the best. The subjunctive, over in the neighbouring ward of the hospital, wants to know what is going on, as it were. "If 'whom' were to go extinct," it murmurs, "surely I would be next. But I do not think it likely. The subjunctive never thinks it likely, which just shows what it knows. To whom am I speaking? People just don't talk like that any more. (Or is it anymore? I am never sure. There is some law that stipulates that every time you write about your love of grammar, you make some sort of glaring solecism halfway through the piece. Perhaps that was it, just now.) Usage, on the whole, has declined. Earlier this week, Michele Bachmann was tossing around rogue "literally"s on the US House of Representatives floor, announcing that Obamacare needs to be stopped before it "literally kills." Literally is the adverb that cried wolf. Literally has awakened us at 3am too many times, shouting that the British are coming. "Literally?" we ask, grabbing our muskets. "No, figuratively," it says. But we needed it to sound urgent! It is Bachmann's kind of careless usage that has diluted literally to its present state, when you almost always assume "figuratively" is meant when you hear "literally" in conversation. Good grammar is like all those days you wear your underwear on the right side of your pants: It goes sadly unremarked upon. But slip up one time and that's what everyone mentions. Grammar Nazis never stop you on the street to say: "What a beautiful subjunctive that was. Clear as a bell, and I loved the appositive you were rocking earlier. Fierce! They just chase you down, like Javert, shouting, "Whom! Not who! Whom! Grammar Nazi is also one of the few Nazi comparisons that we have permitted to stand unchallenged. Few things are so irksome as the person who snaps up at you, shouting, "Don't give it to me and Tanya! Personal pronoun comes last! Perhaps it is time we change tactics. The vinegar approach to grammar certainly does not seem to be bearing much fruit. Maybe we should try honey. After all, grammar is the unseen wire undergirding even the most acrobatic sentence. English is not an inflected language where subject and object are always instantly clear, and it's the hard-working Whoms and Whos of this world that help us skirt that issue. The more of these invisible wires we cut, the uglier our sentences will get. Compliment a stranger's grammar today. It may be our only hope. Remember what John Donne might have said: "Any pronoun's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Language; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." Of course, it tolled for "thee" a long, long time ago. Don't let it toll for whom. How well do you know your who/whom? Which is correct? The guests, who came in limousines, were appalling. or The guests, whom came in limousines, were appalling. The man who we think the police are seeking has left. The man whom we think the police are seeking has left. Who are we looking for? Whom are we looking for? Answers and explanations from the Herald stylebook Who/whom This reflects the same distinction between subject and object. The subject is guests in both the main clause (the guests were appalling) and the subclause (the guests came in cars). But: The guests, whom the chairman invited, were appalling. This time, chairman is subject of the subclause, performing the verb action of inviting, and the guests are the object. So the m is added to who. It's not as complicated as it sounds. Who/whom (as interrogative pronouns) Who has largely supplanted whom in questions: Who did you see? is now more common than, and usually as acceptable as, Whom did you see? Similarly, Who are we working for? is more usual than Whom are we working for? OR For whom (never for who) are we working? This is not to say that every interrogative whom must be changed to who. Where a writer uses a strictly correct whom and the effect is not stilted, leave it. And a direct quotation must not be interfered with. Who is the subjective form, whom is the objective as in: The man who (subject) saw the accident has left. The man whom (object) police want to question has left. The man for whom (object) police are searching has left. In conversational English it is now more common for who to replace whom in such cases as Who are we looking for? rather than the grammatically correct Whom are we looking for? If who sounds more natural when writing questions, whether in headings or copy, use it. Note that who is correct in the following example: The man who we think is a suspect has left. But whom is correct in: The man whom we think the police are seeking has left. In these cases the way to work out which pronoun is correct is mentally to put brackets around we think.