• 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)