A Word, Please:

A reader named Brian wrote to me recently with an interesting little grammar conundrum. The Davis, Calif.-area resident had come across a “who” right next to a “whom” and wanted to know what to make of the construction. Here’s a simplified version of the passage that he found perplexing: “Candidates handed out fliers to students, many of whom who had already voted.”

Brian wanted to know if such a whom-who construction acceptable. Is there any rule against these two words right next to each other?

As I’ve noted here a number of times, it’s easy to think of grammar as just a laundry list of prohibitions. Not surprisingly, many of the people who see it that way don’t like the subject. Sure, sometimes it would be nice to have a couple of stone tablets that lay out clearly whether you can put a “who” next to a “whom.” But, more often, this view of grammar turns a lot of people off. Who wants to memorize lists of things they shouldn’t do?

It’s unfortunate that people who have been taught to see grammar this way can go their entire lives without stumbling across the truth: Grammar is interesting. It’s not so much about whether you can say something. It’s more about: Why or why not?

As Brian knew, the “whom who” in the passage was, at the very least, a bad choice. The passage is complete without the second pronoun: “Many of whom had already voted” is clear and a popular construction. So in general, whenever you have an extra pronoun it’s probably wrong.

But why?

The answer requires a basic knowledge of clauses. A simple clause contains a subject and a verb: “Bob reads.” Sometimes it’s not as easy to identify the subject: “Many of my friends read.” But with a little careful attention you can see that the real subject of this clause is “many.” The “of my friends” part is called a prepositional phrase. It’s really just adding more information to the pronoun “many.”

So the simple clause “many of whom voted” has at its core the subject “many” and the verb “voted.”

A unit like “who had already voted” or the simpler “who had voted” or even just “who voted” is called a relative clause. A relative clause has a special job. It “post-modifies” a noun, which means it comes after the noun and adds some description or specificity to it. “Students” is a noun. “Students who voted” uses a relative clause to add further clarification or description of that noun.

But you don’t need to know that to understand what’s wrong with Brian’s passage. You just need to know that all clauses, including relative clauses, pair a subject with a verb. “Many voted.” “Who voted.”

So, let’s look at our original clause pared down: “many of whom who voted.” The verb that’s paired with our main subject, “many,” is “voted.” But the verb that’s paired with our relative pronoun, “who,” in an attempt to form a relative clause is also “voted.” So basically, the writer attempted to create two clauses. But two clauses require two verbs. And our passage has only one verb.

That is, quite simply, ungrammatical.

I suspect that the error was a typo and not deliberate. It’s very easy, when rewriting a sentence, to leave in an extra word. And chances are the writer would have chosen “many of whom voted” over “many of whom who voted” without having to think about it.

But, for some of us, thinking about it is the fun part.

Get in touch JUNE CASAGRANDE is a freelance writer and author of “Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies” and “Mortal Syntax: 101 Language Choices That Will Get You Clobbered by the Grammar Snobs — Even If You’re Right.” She may be reached at JuneTCN@aol.com.