who, whom

   For those who are perennially baffled by the distinction between these two relative pronouns, it may come as some comfort to know that Shakespeare, Addison, Ben Jon-son, Dickens, Churchill, and the translators of the King James Bible have equally been flummoxed in their time.

   The rule can be stated simply. Whom is used when it is the object of a preposition ("To whom it may concern") or verb ("The man whom we saw last night") or the subject of a complementary infinitive ("The person whom we took to be your father"). Who is used on all other occasions.

   Consider now three examples in which the wrong choice has been made: "Mrs. Hinckley said that her son had been upset by the murder of Mr. Lennon, who he idolized" (New York Times); "Colombo, whom law enforcement officials have said is the head of a Mafia family in Brooklyn . .." (New York Times); "Heartbreaking decision-who to save" (headline in The Times). We can check the correctness of such sentences by imagining them as he/him constructions. For instance, would you say that "Hinckley idolized he" or "idolized him"? Would law enforcement officers say that "he is the head of a Mafia family" or "him is the head"? And is it a heartbreaking decision over whether to save he or to save him?

   Simple, isn't it? Well, not quite. When the relative pronoun follows a preposition in a relative clause, this simple test falls to pieces. Consider this sentence from Fortune: "They rent it to whomever needs it." Since we know that you say "for whom the bell tolls" and "to whom it may concern," it should follow that we would say "to whomever needs it." If we test that conclusion by imagining the sentence as a he/him construction- would they "rent it to he" or "rent it to him"?-we are bound to plump for whom. But we would be wrong. The difficulty is that the relative pronoun is the subject of the verb needs and not the object of the preposition to. The sentence in effect is saying, "They rent it to any person who needs it."

   Similarly, whomever would be wrong in these two sentences: "We must offer it to whoever applies first"; "Give it to whoever wants it." Again, in effect they are saying, "We must offer it to the person who applies first" and "Give it to the person who wants it." Such constructions usually involve a choice between whoever and whomever (as opposed to a simple who and whom), which should always alert you to proceed with caution, but they need not. An exception-and a rather tricky one-is seen here: "The disputants differed diametrically as to who they thought might turn out to be the violator" (cited by Bernstein). The sentence is actually saying, "The disputants differed diametrically as to the identity of the person who, they thought, might turn out to be the violator."

   Most sentences, it must be said, are much more straightforward than this, and by performing a few verbal gymnastics you can usually decide with some confidence which case to use. But is it worth the bother? Bernstein, in his later years, thought not. In 1975, he wrote to twenty-five authorities on usage asking if they thought there was any real point in preserving whom except when it is directly governed by a preposition (as in "to whom it may concern"). Six voted to preserve whom, four were undecided, and fifteen thought it should be abandoned.

   English has been shedding its pronoun declensions for hundreds of years; today who is the only relative pronoun that is still declinable. Preserving the distinction between who and whom does nothing to promote clarity or reduce ambiguity. It has become merely a source of frequent errors and perpetual uncertainty. Authorities have been tossing stones at whom for at least two hundred years-Noah Webster was one of the first to call it needless-but the word refuses to go away. A century from now it may be a relic, but for the moment you ignore it at the risk of being thought unrefined. And there is, in my view, a certain elegance in seeing a tricky whom properly applied. I for one would not like to see it go.