Best debater award

[David Floyd]

1)Wraith

2)Berzerker

3)MtG

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Big Crunch


You use "who" as the subjective form (e.g "he"/"she"/ "they"), and "whom" as a direct or indirect object (e.g "him"/ "her"/"them"):

As the grammatically correct question is "who are they?" or "Who is he?" not "Whom are them" or "Whom is he?"Agathon is correct, in his usage of "who" at least..

Edit - almost irrelevant typo.

Not "Whom are them" but "Whom are they". "Whom are they" is the inverted form of "They are whom". It would be incorrect to say "They are who".

[Agathon]

No skywalker. Word order is grammatically significant in English.

The distinction between "who" and "whom" is basically simple: "who" is the subject form of this pronoun and "whom" is the object form. "Who was wearing that awful dress at the Academy Awards banquet?" is correct because "who" is the subject of the sentence. "The MC was so startled by the neckline that he forgot to whom he was supposed to give the Oscar" is correct because "whom" is the object of the preposition "to." So far so good.

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/errors/who.html

If you are right, what is the subject of "Whom is wearing the red dress?" or "Whom are they?"

[Ming]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
And I'll add this Evan, who has not posted anything in the last three months. Alas, it seems like I'm the noob here.

Yep... EVC still posts under the Thorn handle (when he's not restricted)... he was posting just last week

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Agathon
No skywalker. Word order is grammatically significant in English.

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/errors/who.html

If you are right, what is the subject of "Whom is wearing the red dress?" or "Whom are they?"

I'd think it would be "they", because as I mentioned in the last two posts it's simply "they are whom" inverted ("inversion" is actually a grammatical term, at least according to my French teacher). In "who are they" you'd have two subject pronouns on opposite sides of the verb.

[Agathon]

If they is the subject and whom is the object, then each word must refer to different things. No item can be both the subject and the object unless you use a reflexive pronoun (himself, herself, itself, themselves). e.g. "He washed himself".

"They" is a demonstrative pronoun (that, those, them) and "whom" is an interrogative pronoun (who, whom, which).

So you can't be right.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by skywalker

It would be incorrect to say "They are who".

Whom is never used with the verb 'to be' because the verb to be cannot take an object

[Jon Miller]

I must say that some seem very ethuisiastic for debating

JM

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
I must say that some seem very ethuisiastic for debating

I disagree!

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by loinburger

I disagree!

I refute you thus: !

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Big Crunch


Whom is never used with the verb 'to be' because the verb to be cannot take an object

Huh? In the sentence "I am a furry", "furry" is the object, isn't it?

[Agathon]

No. It is a predicate adjective.

[Winston]

- This isn't an argument, this is just contradiction.

- No it isn't.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Agathon
No. It is a predicate adjective.

Not "I am furry", "I am a furry". "Furry" as in "stefu"

[loinburger]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
I refute you thus: !

Obviously there's just no getting through to you...