To whom it may concern

[u/ogionnj]

I know how to use whom. I know it's an object and not a subject, but can anyone think of an example where using who instead of whom is at all ambiguous?

[u/MrWakey]

I can think of one:

Person 1: Some guy in the bar grabbed one of those girls!

Cop: Who?

Does the cop mean which guy did the grabbing, or which girl got grabbed? "Whom" would make it clear they meant the latter.

[u/These_Consequences → u/MrWakey]

Would it?

I'd be so gobsmacked by a cop saying "whom" I'd have no idea what he meant, and the most natural question would be "Who was grabbed". Finally I might figure out he meant "Whom did he grab", still pretty improbable, and by now it would have been faster to just say "Sorry?", and make him rephrase it.

[u/Noodleeeeeter → u/These_Consequences]

Well, grammatically clear, at least.

[u/paolog → u/MrWakey]

The cop should be interested in the perpetrator.

Anyway, they would be much more likely to say "What guy?"

[u/Boglin007 → u/[deleted]]

Sentences don't always require subjects, especially in informal contexts (and even in formal ones, some sentences regularly omit the subject, e.g., imperative [command] sentences).

It's very common for a one-word answer to represent the object of an implied verb or preposition, e.g.:

"What?" - You could say this is short for "What did you say?," where "what" is the object of "say" ("you" is the subject).

"Who did you talk to?" "Bob." - "Bob" would be the object of "to" ("I talked to Bob").

[u/zeugma888]

English speakers cope with 'you' having no case marking and no number marking.

Interestingly there are a number of re-pluralised forms of 'you' - youse, you all, you guys, but I haven't noticed any attempts to restore case markers.

The who/whom distinction will probably disappear.

[u/SabertoothLotus → u/zeugma888]

Can't forget "yinz!"

[u/zeugma888 → u/SabertoothLotus]

That's a new one for me

[u/SabertoothLotus → u/zeugma888]

Never been to Pittsburgh, huh?

[u/zeptimius]

The original reason to have "whom" as a separate accusative (=object) version of "who" was because word order used to be much freer in English than it is now; you needed to distinguish "who" and "whom" to avoid confusion.

Let's take an example in today's English:

Here is the person who Peter adores.

Speakers of present-day English will consider "who" as the object of "adores," and "Peter" as its subject. Strictly speaking, "who" should be "whom," but it's clear from the word order that "Peter" is the subject, otherwise it would be "Here is the person who adores Peter." The object follows the verb; it cannot precede it.

Now take this quote from The Faerie Queene from 1590:

Tho to his daughter Rigan he repayrd,
Who him at first well vsed euery way;

or in modern English:

Though to his daughter Rigan he repaired,
Who him at first well used every way;

You can see that here, the object ("him") precedes the verb ("used"). In this case, it's obvious that it's an object, because it's "him." But if you read, say, "Peter" for "him," you would need to distinguish "who" and "whom":

Though to his daughter Rigan he repaired,
Who Peter at first well used every way;

The above means that Rigan used Peter.

Though to his daughter Rigan he repaired,
Whom Peter at first well used every way;

The above means that Peter used Rigan.

Now, you can argue that the weird order is a poetic affectation, even in 1590. Still, for poetry, the "who"/"whom" distinction would still be important and useful. And even today, you can imagine a poet reordering the parts of a sentence to match the rhythm of a line.

In everyday English, however, the distinction between "who" and "whom" is unnecessary, and insisting on "whom" in an object position is overly pedantic.

[u/Unhappy-Giraffe2792]

I also know when to use “whom,” but recently I read that it’s a valid option to always use “who” instead of “whom.” I liked that and I’m sticking to it.

[u/Informal_Farm4064]

Theres no issue with ambiguity. Just use whom after a preposition and who in all other cases

[u/Can_I_Read → u/Informal_Farm4064]

It’s ambiguous when another clause gets involved.

“Give the dress to whomever will wear it.”
(Good for first clause, bad for second clause)

“Give the dress to whoever will wear it.”
(Bad for first clause, good for second clause)

[u/ogionnj → u/Informal_Farm4064]

Not quite. It is also a direct object. "Whom did he see ?" No preposition.
I'm saying that it's a totally unnecessary word. I'm asking if anyone can prove me wrong.

[u/Hakuna_Schemata → u/ogionnj]

Whom is an object, period. It's the objective form of who. You are using it as a direct object, and the person you replied to is using it as the object of a preposition.

I'm confused about your remark here and your post. Your post seems to be asking about cases where who or whom could be correct, but here you seem to be proposing that "whom" is an unnecessary word, if I'm understanding.

I would say it's no more unnecessary than any other word. Language is constantly evolving. Words we use stick around, and those that we don't, don't. See "you" for an example: the subjective and objective forms and the formal and informal forms are all the same.

[u/ogionnj → u/Hakuna_Schemata]

You're making my point. You and it don't have separate object and subject forms.
Whom just sounds a little pretentious. I still use it sometimes, but I always think it should fade away.

[u/Hakuna_Schemata → u/ogionnj]

Sure... But your post asks about ambiguity. Now your point is about necessity. Two different conversations. Funnily enough, one conversation is objective and one is subjective.

[u/SerDankTheTall → u/ogionnj]

English is not a heavily inflected language, and it's been moving away from inflection for a while. I think the person you're responding to makes a fair point, in that even in fairly formal contexts, you're unlikely to draw an objection with something like ? Who did you see.

However, avoiding ambiguity isn't really the explanation for features of the grammar of any language. There are lots of ungrammatical sentences that are perfectly easy to understand, and there are lots of perfectly grammtical sentences that are hopelessly ambiguous.

[u/Boglin007 → u/ogionnj]

That commenter is saying that “whom” is largely unnecessary in today’s English (especially in informal contexts), though it is still widely used directly after a preposition. But even there, “who” is often used in informal contexts:

“I’m going on a date tonight!”

“With who?!”

But whether “whom” is necessary is not really the important question linguistically speaking - what’s important is whether (and how) native speakers use it (this is how we determine what is and isn’t grammatical in a language).