July 16, 2021
I need some help
We have just interviewed an applicant (who/whom)the committee believes is best qualified for the position.
In this sentence, 1)why the answer is who?
2) can I omit "the committee believes"? What is the function of it?
Thank you!
I need some help
We have just interviewed an applicant (who/whom) the committee believes is best qualified for the position.
In this sentence, 1) why is the answer is "who"?
2) can I omit "the committee believes"?
What is the function of it?
Thank you!
Feedback
I'm not completely sure - who/whom is something that natives aren't really taught, and we mostly just use "who" even when it's technically incorrect - but I think it's because the applicant is the subject of "is".
You would say "He is best qualified for the position", we can't use "him". "Him is best qualified for the position" is obviously wrong. So it must be "who".
It's a little tricky here because you have "believes", right? That looks like the main verb, and the committee is the subject of it. But actually the object of "believes" is not the applicant, but the whole clause - the committee believes *that* _he is most qualified_.
If the "who" was the direct object of "believes", it *would* be "whom". The committee has just interviewed someone whom we believe - as in, we think this person is telling the truth. Whom do we believe? We believe him.
And the function of "the committee believes" is to make it clear that this is a belief, not some kind of universal truth. It's subtle, and if you omitted it the sentence would mean basically the same thing. But it makes it a little softer, raises the possibility that the belief may be wrong. If you tell me "She has a red car", I would think you *know* that. You've seen it with your own eyes, you're certain you remember, it's a fact. If you tell me "I believe she has a red car", I might think you're not 100% sure you remember correctly. Maybe someone told you, but you've never seen it. Maybe you saw it a long time ago, and it's possible she's bought a new car since.
I hope that's helpful? It's a little hard to explain!
July 16, 2021
Like the previous commenter said, we often get away with just saying ‘who’ when in doubt. This is my intuitive understanding of when to use who versus whom:
“HE is the best qualified for the position.” HE is the subject.
V
“We have just interviewed an applicant WHO the company believes IS the best qualified for the position.”
———
“The company believes HE IS the best qualified for the position.” HE can also act as a subject.
V
“We have just interviewed an applicant WHOM the company believes IS the best qualified for the position.” This should also be correct.
“The company believes HIM TO BE the best qualified for the position.” HIM is an object.
V
“We have just interviewed an applicant WHOM the company believes TO BE the best qualified for the position.”
July 17, 2021
It helps a lot. Thank you!
July 19, 2021
You’re welcome, good to know it helped!
I need some help
We have just interviewed an applicant (who/whom)the committee believes is best qualified for the position.
In this sentence, 1)why the answer is who?
Can be either. In "proper" English "whom" would be used, but this may sound very stilted in colloquial English, where "who" is often used instead. (Scratch that, commenter below pointed out that only "who" would be used in this situation in proper English as well)
2) can I omit "the committee believes"?
No, since this indicates that the candidate is best qualified ACCORDING TO the committee. Without this, the sentence either comes off as a factual statement (i.e. the candidate is objectively the best qualified) or as the opinion of the speaker (i.e. the candidate is the best qualified ACCORDING TO me) by default.
What is the function of it?
Thank you!
July 16, 2021
In this sentence, 1)why the answer is who?
I believe "who" is actually correct here because it's the nominative (subjective) case rather than the accusative (objective) case. Another way to think about it is if you replace the relative pronoun (who/whom) with a personal pronoun (he/him/she/her): an applicant (who/whom) the committee believes is best qualified for the position → the committee believes (he/him) is best qualified for the position. Hopefully in this case it's clear that "he" is correct, which is also in the nominative case, corresponding to "who," and therefore "who" is correct.
The reason this is a little tricky is because the common way to tell if it's "who" or "whom" is to see if the next word is a noun or a verb, but in this case that doesn't work. This is because the "who" is not the object of the committee's actions here. You asked later down whether "the committee believes" can be removed. GRAMMATICALLY speaking, yes it can be removed, and if you do remove it, you'd see my point here. (About whether it should be removed in regard to meaning of the sentence, refer to this corrector's later comments.)
July 16, 2021
Sorry, my English can be really weird at times. Dunno if this is a good rule of thumb or not, but in colloquial English always use "who", even in cases where in the literary style you would absolutely use "whom".
As a native speaker, I've never used "whom", even in formal situations such as in a classroom setting in secondary school (although, as a side note, this doesn't mean much since in colloquial English we tend to avoid relative clause constructions unless they're unavoidable - they sound stilted as well to my ears)
July 18, 2021
Sorry, my English can be really weird at times. Dunno if this is a good rule of thumb or not, but in colloquial English always use "who", even in cases where in the literary style you would absolutely use "whom". As a native speaker, I've never used "whom", even in formal situations such as in a classroom setting in secondary school (although, as a side note, this doesn't mean much since in colloquial English we tend to avoid relative clause constructions unless they're unavoidable - they sound stilted as well to my ears)
No yeah that's definitely the rule of thumb. I have heard "whom" used regularly only by like this one English teacher I had in middle school.
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I need some help This sentence has been marked as perfect! This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
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We have just interviewed an applicant (who/whom)the committee believes is best qualified for the position. This sentence has been marked as perfect! We have just interviewed an applicant (who/whom) the committee believes is best qualified for the position. |
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In this sentence, 1)why the answer is who? In this sentence, 1)why the answer is who? Can be either. In "proper" English "whom" would be used, but this may sound very stilted in colloquial English, where "who" is often used instead. (Scratch that, commenter below pointed out that only "who" would be used in this situation in proper English as well) In this sentence, 1) why is the answer |
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2) can I omit "the committee believes"? 2) can I omit "the committee believes"? No, since this indicates that the candidate is best qualified ACCORDING TO the committee. Without this, the sentence either comes off as a factual statement (i.e. the candidate is objectively the best qualified) or as the opinion of the speaker (i.e. the candidate is the best qualified ACCORDING TO me) by default. This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
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What is the function of it? This sentence has been marked as perfect! This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
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