• idiomaddict@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    It’s “whom” either way, because the “to” is still there, it just comes at the end of the sentence, something which works perfectly fine in English and doesn’t hamper understanding at all.

    • slothrop @lemmy.caOP
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      8 days ago

      Correct.
      Even in the absence of “to”, ‘whom’ is correct: Whom do I thank…

      • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        Oh absolutely, because it’s the object, not the subject, but you do need the “to” for “say” to work well. We’ve basically only got a case system in English in pronouns and it feels a lot more confusing to people than it is.

        Would you say “him?” Say “whom.”*

        Would you say “he?” Say “who.”

        *major exception: people like to use the objective case with “it is,” but that does not flow well with whom- you might call someone up and say “it’s me,” but “whom is it?” is going to hit a lot more people’s ears wrong. (Neither really makes sense for the objective case, but there are incomprehensible exceptions to normal case rules in other languages, I support English getting weird with it)