“Whom is calling?”
‘Whom’ is the object. Here the caller is doing the calling — they’re the subject.
Usage Entry 04 / 1605 60-second read Formal
Who vs. Whom
Subject versus object — the pronoun doing it versus the pronoun it happens to.
The comparisoni
“Who is calling?”
‘Who’ is the subject — the one performing the action.
More examplesii
01
Who did you give the keys to?
Whom did you give the keys to?
Substitute HIM: ‘You gave the keys to him.’ HIM fits, so it’s WHOM.
02
Whom made this mess?
Who made this mess?
HE made the mess — HE fits, so it’s WHO.
The ruleiii
¶
WHO = subject. WHOM = object.
Swap in HE / HIM. If HE fits, use WHO. If HIM fits, use WHOM. He is calling → Who is calling.
Notesiv
Origin
Old English had four forms: *hwā* (who), *hwæs* (whose), *hwǣm* (whom-dative), *hwone* (whom-accusative). English lost most of its case system, but *hwǣm* survived as ‘whom’ — the last holdout of grammatical case in pronouns.
Regional
American English dropped ‘whom’ from conversation decades earlier than British English and now tolerates ‘who’ in most object slots even in journalism. British, Indian, and Australian English hold onto ‘whom’ more firmly in news copy and formal writing — Indian English in particular treats the distinction as a marker of careful writing.
Register
‘Whom’ sounds formal to the modern ear. In conversation, ‘who’ is usually accepted in both slots; in edited prose, the distinction still earns points.
Watch for
With prepositions — ‘to whom,’ ‘for whom,’ ‘with whom’ — ‘whom’ is near-mandatory even in everyday writing.
Memory aidv
Remember it like this
HE and WHO both end in a vowel. HIM and WHOM both end in M.
A bit of historyvi
Old English had hwā (who, subject), hwæs (whose), hwǣm (whom-dative), and hwone (whom-accusative). The accusative form was lost in early Middle English; the dative form became modern whom. By Shakespeare's time the system was already collapsing — Shakespeare used who in object position freely, and complaints about the loss of whom appear in 18th-century usage manuals onward.
In the wildvii
Real-world-style usage — how this looks in a sentence people would actually write.
- Whom were you speaking to earlier? (In speech, ‘who were you speaking to?’ is far more common.)
- Ask not for whom the bell tolls — it tolls for thee. (Donne, 1624 — the classic use.)
Spottedviii
Specimens from the editorial inbox — lines that did, in fact, get published.
“Whom is responsible for this delay?”
— A corporate town-hall email, 2021 — subject a misplaced ‘whom’
“The candidate who the voters rejected has requested a recount.”
— An election-night lower-third, 2020
Test yourselfix
Which is right for formal writing?
Quick duel 4 questions · ~30 seconds
Which is right?