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When talking on a person can I always replace the relative clause "that" with "whom"? I am pretty confused with the using of "whom".

For example:

1) The teacher that (also who) was here - now is there. > The teacher whom was here - now is there.

Example No.2

2) The waiter who gave you the food - is in the kitchen now. > The waiter whom gave you the food - is in the kitchen now.

example No.3

3) Those guys who you talked to, now are looking for you. > Those guys whom you talked to, now are looking for you.

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    You'd be better off coming at this from the opposite direction. For all practical purposes, you should probably assume you can always replace whom with who, not the other way around.
    – FumbleFingers
    Nov 26, 2016 at 14:45

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Except for No. 3, no, you can't. Moreover, you shouldn't.

Whom is a pronoun for the objective or prepositional case in English.

For Whom The Bell Tolls [title]

She is a teacher whom we all love.

But it's fine to say

Those guys whom you talked to are looking for you now.

Never use whom where the nominative case would be indicated.

The waiter whom who gave you the food is in the kitchen now

An easy way to remember this is to use whom where you would use him or her.

She is a great teacher. We all love her -> She is a great teacher whom we all love.

Final note: whom is fading from English. Outside of academic or formal works, you rarely hear it.

Where it would be formally correct to say

Whom did you give the book to?

or

To whom did you give the book?

in conversation almost everyone will say

Who did you give the book to?

or

Who'd you give the book to?

(But I personally would still feel awkward saying "To who did you give the book?")

Now, do you see why No. 3 works and the others don't?

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  • I think "you'd never say" is a bit strong there. It's quite true that in ordinary conversation most of us would ask Who did you give it to?, so probably those who don't like the preposition coming at the end will include a higher proportion of "pedants" (to whom the who / whom distinction remains important) than the population at large. But hundreds of people have written To who did you give...? Never say never, I always say.
    – FumbleFingers
    Nov 26, 2016 at 14:54
  • @FumbleFingers: A fair point. I've modified my stance now.
    – Robusto
    Nov 26, 2016 at 15:09
  • I totally endorse your point about whom is fading from English, though. In fact, I think the specific phrase To whom it may concern... is perhaps the only one left where everyone would agree we need to keep that /m/. Arguably that entire phrase is becoming something of a "fixed form", but I reckon it probably reinforces the tendency to go for to whom over to who in other contexts (i.e. - many of us are much more likely to be "fussy" when the explicitly-specified preposition to precedes who[m]).
    – FumbleFingers
    Nov 26, 2016 at 15:21
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  1. The teacher whom was here is there now

  2. The waiter whom gave you the food is in the kitchen now.

  3. Those guys whom you talked to are now looking for you.

When that/who is used as the subject of a clause, you cannot replace it with the objective form of who i.e. whom.

So your sentences #1 and #2 are ungrammatical.

On the other hand, sentence #3, though the use of whom is formal and less common, is grammatical. However, it'll be appropriate if you use the preposition 'to' in front of whom as follows:

Those guys with/to whom you talked are now looking for you.

However, the use of who in place of the objective form whom in most cases is very common and idiomatic both in formal and informal English.

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  • In sentence #3, I would use ' to whom you spoke', not talked. I need to spend time I don't have right now figuring out why, but I'm not comfortable with the to in 'talked to' being shifted in front of who or whom.
    – ColleenV
    Nov 28, 2016 at 14:55

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