Is it Who or Whom?
IS IT WHO OR WHOM? BY DAVID ARTHUR WALTERS "You must know your history to know who you are," said a rabbi attending on old folks home in South Beach. History is a mistake as far as I am concerned at the moment. "Maybe I shall be glad to die for what a miserable history I've had," I said to my secret self when I reflected on my past, although I must admit that I had some good times and did not know it at the time. "Am I to blame for what happened to me or what I did? Is this why people get confused about the use of 'who' and 'whom'?" Whom has become a rare form even where grammar strictly requires it (sic), claims my textbook, as if "grammar" were a person who requires us to speak in certain ways. Should one more properly ask, "Whom am I?", that is, one that happens to be, as if one were an object made by circumstances, rather than, "Who am I?" as if one has a free will and therefore makes one self? Not tha...