Who vs Whom: Does Anyone Actually Use "Whom" Correctly?

Before we start, a quick test. Pick who or whom for each sentence, and remember your answers. We'll come back to them.

1. "___ did you invite?"
2. "To ___ it may concern."
3. "___ do you think will win?"

Done? Good. Now let's investigate: is whom dying, and should anyone care?

Chapter 1: The suspect (meet "whom")

Whom is old, formal and slightly snobbish. You find it in legal documents, wedding invitations, formal letters and the title of a Hemingway novel (For Whom the Bell Tolls). Few people use it when they text a friend.

Why does it exist at all? Long ago, English marked a word's job in the sentence by changing its form. Most of that system is gone, but a few survivors remain:

Subject (does the action)	Object (receives it)
I	me
he	him
she	her
they	them
who	whom

Whom is simply the object form of who, just as him is the object form of he. It is one of the last survivors of that old system, and that is why it feels out of place.

Chapter 2: The evidence (how often do people use it?)

The usual story is that whom has been declining for a long time, in both books and speech. If you want to see the trend yourself, search "who" and "whom" in a tool such as Google Ngram Viewer or a language corpus and compare how often each appears over time.

Where whom survives:

• Formal writing: letters, academic papers, legal documents.
• Set phrases: "to whom it may concern".
• Right after a preposition: "with whom", "to whom", "for whom".

Where it has largely vanished:

• Casual conversation and texts.
• Most questions: people say "Who did you invite?", not "Whom did you invite?".

Chapter 3: The rule, explained in one trick

The rule is simple, so this chapter is short.

The he/him test: answer the question, or rephrase the clause, using he or him.

• If he fits → use who. Who called? → He called.
• If him fits → use whom. Whom did you call? → You called him.

Memory hook: him and whom both end in m.

Chapter 4: The plot twist (where even experts get it wrong)

Here's the surprise. The most common mistake isn't using who where whom belongs. It's the opposite: hypercorrection, where people use whom to sound smart when who is correct.

• Whom shall I say is calling? → Who shall I say is calling? (He is calling.)
• The man whom I believe stole the car → The man who I believe stole the car. (He stole the car.)

Why does this happen? Phrases like "I think" or "I believe" interrupt the sentence and hide the word's real role. In the second example, whom feels like the object of believe, but the real job of the word is the subject of stole. Take out "I believe" and it's clear: the man who stole the car.

Now the answers to the opening test:

1. "Whom did you invite?" → You invited him. Formal English uses whom. (In casual speech, who is common.)
2. "To whom it may concern." → To is a preposition, so whom is the standard form. This is a fixed phrase.
3. "Who do you think will win?" → This is the trap. Remove "do you think" and you get who will win? → He will win. The answer is who.

If you got #3 wrong, you're in good company. It's one of the most common slip-ups.

Chapter 5: The verdict (so, should you use it?)

There's no single rule here. It depends on the situation:

Situation	What to do
Job applications, academic papers, formal letters	Use whom correctly.
Directly after a preposition ("with whom", "to whom")	Use whom. "With who" still sounds wrong to many readers.
Everyday speech and casual writing	Who is fine almost everywhere.
When you're unsure	Rewrite the sentence to avoid the problem.

For example, instead of agonizing over "To who/whom did you send it?", write "Who did you send it to?" or "Whom did you send it to?" depending on how formal you want to sound, or rephrase it completely.

Both sides have a point. Prescriptivists see whom as a mark of careful writing, and there are readers and editors who notice when it's missing. Linguists see its decline as normal language change, the same way English dropped thou and many other forms. Both views are useful: know the rule for when it counts, and don't panic about it when it doesn't.

Closing: the answer to the title's question

So, does anyone actually use "whom" correctly? Yes, some people do, but fewer every year. And the people who misuse it out of nervousness may now outnumber the people who use it naturally.

Whom isn't dead. It's just retired to formal occasions.

Got a whom sentence that has always confused you? Try it on our quizzes and find out.

Practice grammar quizzes →

Keep learning

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• A rule that also has a famous myth behind it: Fewer vs Less: What's the Actual Rule?
• Another apostrophe trap: Its vs It's: How to Never Confuse Them Again
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