The “he or him” test to determine whether to use “who” or “whom” is not adequate advice.
Knock knock.
Whom’s there?
Meme.
Meme whom?
Meme, Iself and I.
My apologies for making you jump around the text like that— oh, which reminds me, I shouldn’t have written this footnote.
I have to admit that this is the first knock-knock joke I’ve ever written. I created it here not with the idea of having third-graders the world over repeat it while I bask in the influx of knock-knock- joke royalties, but to illustrate the irritating hypercorrection of the word who. Is the example too concocted? Perhaps, yet consider this fairly common real-world bastardization of who (which we’ll call a ring-ring joke):
Ring ring.
Hello?
Is George there?
Whom shall I say is calling?
Uh . . . meme.
In the above example, Who would be correct, because it is the subject of the sentence, and not the object of a prepositional phrase, where whom would be at whome, er, home. “To whom shall I direct the call?” is correct. Who used as the subject of the sentence is also correct, and “Whom is at the door?” would be grammatical only if you could reconstruct it as “The door is at whom?”
And here’s where we get into the myth of the “he or him” rule. This litmus test asks you to replace the who/whom in question with he/him to see what sounds right.
• George took the call from who?
• George took the call from he.
So therefore whom is technically correct. Note, however, that this test doesn’t always work. Consider:
• Whoever took the last cookie shall die a sugary death!
• Himever took the last cookie . . . um . ..
• He-ever took the last cookie . ..
5 °
Bill Brohaugh
Well, looks like we have to sorta figure out for ourselves that whoever in the test sample is indeed correct (but I still want to find out which of my “friends” took that last cookie).
Now, if you don’t want to be sexist about all this, you can instead use the “she or her” test, replacing the owlish word in question with feminine pronouns and thereby make the world a more tolerant place. Better yet, alternate equally between he/him and she/her just to make sure everyone’s covered. (To show how confusing this is, I offer, without further comment, a quote attributed to a recent President: “You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.” Are you writing all this down?)
Meantime:
Ring ring.
Hello, can I put you on hold?—I think there’s someone at the door.
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Whom.
Whom who?
Is that a trick question? 16