“Who” or “Whom”?

Question

Please have a look on the following examples:

1-1- Who does he look like?
1-2- Who does he resemble?
1-3- Whom does he look like?
1-4- Whom does he resemble?

As far as I know, for “he”’ or “’she,” we use "who" and for “him” or “her,” use "whom".

Consequently, we say:

• He looks like me (not "I"). [Therefore, we must be able to use "whom" not "who"!]
• He resembles me (not "I").[Therefore, we must be able to use "whom" not "who"!]

But Ngram shows somwthing else! Please have a look on the folloing link: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=whom+does+he+look+like%2Cwhom+does+he+resemble%2Cwho+does+he+look+like%2Cwho+does+he+resemble&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Cwhom%20does%20he%20resemble%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3BWhom%20does%20he%20resemble%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bwhom%20does%20he%20resemble%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Cwho%20does%20he%20look%20like%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3BWho%20does%20he%20look%20like%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bwho%20does%20he%20look%20like%3B%2Cc0

The same goes for the following examples of mine:

2-1- Who is her demeanor like the most?
2-2- Who is her demeanor similar to the most?
2-3- Whom is her demeanor like the most?
2-4- Whom is her demeanor similar to the most?

I have no any idea which one is correct and which one is incorrect?

I would appresiate it if you could help me to figure it out!

Answer 1

You are correct about examples 1-1 through 1-4 - whom is the "correct" word, though in modern usage, who is usually used when whom would be appropriate. "Whom does he look like?" would probably sound affected or overly formal to a modern audience. As ColleenV points out, this question has been asked before, and Mechanical snail has a very good answer here: How can one differentiate between "who" and "whom"?

I also want to address examples 2-1 through 2-4. These questions all sound slightly "off". A demeanor is not a person, so you can not talk about one with the word "who". You can rephrase them as follows:

2-5- Whose demeanor is hers most like?

2-6- Whose demeanor is hers most similar to?

Hers is substituted for her demeanor. You want to know which person's demeanor is most like "hers" (whoever "she" is), so you should use the possessive pronoun whose.

That being said, I still think these "corrected" sentences sound kind of formal and awkward. You could probably get away with asking just:

2-7- Who is she most like?

2-8- Who is she most similar to?

Or to be more clear that you are talking about someone's demeanor, which I think is basically equivalent to attitude:

2-9- Who is she most like, attitude-wise?

2-10- Who is she most similar to, attitude-wise?