A Word, Please: ‘Whomever’ is rising in popularity, but some of us are using it wrong

“Whom” is having a rough couple of centuries. The object pronoun beloved by fans of proper English seems to be less popular than ever. And I don’t just mean in casual speech. I mean in published writing.

In the 1820s, “whom” appeared in about 4% of books and articles. By the 1920s, that was closer to 1%. Today, it’s even lower — about 0.9%. Meanwhile, “who” has been on the rise since the 1980s, so it’s possible some writers are using “who” in place of “whom,” which is fine, especially when it’s the first word in the sentence: “Who are you going to support in the election?”

But the interesting thing is that, even as “whom” continues its slide, “whomever” is on the rise, tripling in popularity since the 1980s.

How is it possible that even as the English speaking world has gotten more chill about “whom” it’s discovered a love for “whomever”? I don’t know. I had a theory, which didn’t pan out.

My guess was that fewer and fewer people know how to choose between “whomever” and “whoever,” so they apply a partial understanding of the rules and guess wrong.

If this were true, the word “whoever” would decline roughly in proportion to “whomever’s” rise. But “whoever” is more popular than ever, so I don’t know where all these “whomevers” are coming from.

But there’s still a lesson here — a word of caution about a far-too-common “whomever” mistake committed even by professional journalists. Here’s an example of that error: “I’ll hire whomever does best in the interview.” That should be “whoever.”

People who aren’t trying to use good grammar, ironically, get this right more often than people who are trying. That’s because grammar buffs usually understand that “whom” and “whomever” are object pronouns, but they don’t understand that whole clauses can be objects, too.

Object pronouns are words we use every day and include “me,” “him,” “us” and “them.” They’re often objects of verbs, as in “show me,” “invite him,” “tell us” and “ignore them.” Or they’re objects of prepositions like “at,” “to” and “with”: “yell at me,” “send to him,” “relate to us,” “go with them.”

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They’re the mirror image of subject pronouns “I,” “he,” “we,” “they,” etc., which we use as subjects: “I yell,” “he sends” and so on.

“Whom” is an object pronoun, “You sent it to whom?” and “who” is a subject pronoun, “Who sent this?” Similarly, “whomever” is an object pronoun and “whoever” is a subject pronoun. But because these two often sit between clauses, there’s a twist that some people don’t realize.

Compare: “Police will arrest whoever breaks the law” and “Police will arrest whomever they catch breaking the law.”

In both cases, the pronoun comes right after the verb “arrest.” So if you apply a simple understanding of pronouns, you would guess you need “whomever” there because it’s an object. But in that second sentence, the word after “arrest” is not the object. The whole clause that follows “arrest” is the object, and that clause needs its own subject: whoever.

For a super-simple example, look at the sentence: I saw who did it. The object of the verb “saw” is the whole clause “who did it.” If the pronoun were the object, you’d have to say, “I saw whom did it.”

Even professional writers, editors and broadcasters get this wrong. A lot.

Look at this sentence from the Aug. 22 New York Times sports section: “He talks to whomever wants to hear about the story of the hat.”

Either the editor didn’t understand object pronouns or the writer made a mistake and the editor didn’t catch it. He or she clearly thought that the preposition “to” needed to be followed by an object pronoun. But in fact, the object of the preposition “to” is the whole clause “whoever wants to hear about the story of the hat.” That’s because “wants” needs a subject and only “whoever” can fill that role.

Anytime you see a “whomever” sandwiched between two clauses, ask yourself if the second verb has a subject. In “Police will arrest whomever they catch breaking the law,” the subject of the verb “catch” is “they.” Clearly, we don’t need to swap “whomever” to “whoever” to do the catching in the verb. But in “Police will arrest whoever breaks the law,” there’s no other word that could be the subject of “breaks,” so “whoever” must be it.

June Casagrande is the author of “The Joy of Syntax: A Simple Guide to All the Grammar You Know You Should Know.” She can be reached at JuneTCN@aol.com.