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The pronoun who, in the English language, is the interrogative and relative pronoun that is used to refer to human beings and some animals perceived as sentient.
The corresponding interrogative pronouns for non-sentient beings are what and which, and the relative pronouns are that and which, though that and which are sometimes used in contexts where who might be a more suitable choice.
In etymology, it represents the expected outcome of Old English hwâ. It is cognate with Latin quis and Greek ποιος.
Case forms
Traditionally, who is the subjective form only. Formal Queen's English grammar prescribes that who is a subjective pronoun, and that whom is the corresponding objective pronoun. The possessive form is whose. See also declension in English.
In informal English (and increasingly more so in some formal situations as well, especially in American English), whom is dying in most dialects; who has become far more common than whom for both subject and object forms.
The one situation where whom remains in significant use is when following a preposition. It remains uncommon to see who used after a preposition. In informal contexts, the preposition is instead placed at the end (see preposition stranding), and the word who may be omitted where it is used as a relative pronoun. For example:
- (relative, formal): He is someone to whom I owe a great deal.
- (interrogative, formal): To whom did you give it?
- (relative, informal): He is someone (who) I owe a great deal to.
- (interrogative, informal): Who did you give it to?
In practice the formal form with the interrogative is now rare, but the formal form with the relative pronoun remains reasonably common.
Rules for determining who vs. whom in traditional usage
To determine whether who or whom should be used in a sentence, at least according to traditional usage, many people may find it easier to recast the sentence in non-interrogative form using a personal pronoun and determine whether they would use he or she (subjects) or him or her (direct and indirect objects) instead of who or whom. For example in determining:
- Who did you call? versus Whom did you call?
this yields:
- incorrect — *You called she.
- correct — You called her.
Since the former sentence is a solecism, this sentence calls for whom rather than who.
However, in determining:
- Who shall I say is calling? versus Whom shall I say is calling?
this yields:
- correct — I shall say she is calling.
- incorrect — *I shall say her is calling.
indicating that who is appropriate for this question. (The incorrect form *Whom shall I say is calling? would be an example of hypercorrection resulting from a confused attempt to follow prescriptive grammar.)
Also, whom is the form used whenever there are prepositions involved. Again this is analogous to personal pronouns, for which the object form is also used after a preposition. For example:
- To whom have you been talking? (Compare: You have been talking to him.)
- For whom have you taken these marvellous photographs?
- With whom are you going to the cinema?
- We have been discussing plans with them, of whom we have grown rather fond these days.
- We have been discussing plans with them, whom we have grown rather fond of these days.
The indirect object is normally formed with to, so is generally just a particular example of the usage with prepositions (to whom). In some situations, whom can also be used by itself to represent the indirect object. However this is only really used in contexts where the direct object is omitted, e.g. Whom will you tell? Where the direct object is expressed, to is generally included, even where an analogous sentence using a personal pronoun might use the pronoun as the indirect object, e.g. You will tell him a story but To whom will you tell a story?
The same rules apply to declined pronouns whomever and whomsoever.
"Who (pronoun)"