I wonder if Yahoo! Style has editors and writers who have shared information about the difference between nominative and objective pronouns. I think not:
The nominative pronoun who can be the subject of a verb like, oh, say, maybe have shared. The objective pronoun whom can be the object of a verb or preposition, like “to whom it may concern” and “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”
Looks like this Yahoo! Style writer was trying to be excruciatingly correct, but wound up being completely wrong:
The word she should have used is whoever, because it’s the subject of the verb wears.
If you’re unsure if you should use who or whom (or whoever or whomever), go with who (or whoever). You’ve got a 50-50 chance of being correct. If you use whom or whomever and you’re wrong, you look like a pretentious high school dropout.
To whoever is reading this: The Yahoo! Sports writer is confused about the use of whomever (which is the objective case of whoever and is used as the object of a preposition) and whoever (which can be the subject of a verb like was listening):
This writer isn’t alone in his confusion. To many people, it appears that whomever is the object of the preposition to, but it’s the entire clause that’s the object of the preposition. And whoever should be the subject of the verb in that clause.
If you’re not into being grammatically nitpicky and you’re faced with the choice between who and whom or whoever and whomever, go with who or whoever. In more the half the cases, you’ll be correct, and even if you’re wrong, your writing will sound more authentic and less stilted and formal.
There’s at least one person who writes for a living, but has only a tenuous grasp of English grammar. Of course, the man of whom we speak is the Yahoo! Sports writer responsible for this:
If you spotted this grammatical error on the Yahoo! front page, thank a teacher:
If you’re a conscientious writer who strives to be grammatically correct 100 percent of the time, but you still struggle with choosing between who and whom, take my advice: Choose who. If you’re wrong, 90 percent of your readers won’t know it and the rest won’t care. If you choose whom, you might be correct, but your writing will sound pretentious and stilted. And if you’re wrong, you might be mistaken for a writer for Yahoo! Shine:
Could that sound any uglier? The correct word happens to be who, because the pronoun is the subject of the verb had. The pronoun who is the subjective case (and hence, the subject of verbs); whom is the objective case (and the object of verbs or prepositions).
Whoever wrote this for the Yahoo! front page has a problem with grammar:
The pronouns whoever and whomever signal a dependent clause; the choice of pronoun to use depends on its function in the dependent clause. In this case, it is the subject of the verb shot; therefore, the correct word is whoever.
How many errors have there been on Yahoo! News? Hundreds? Thousands? I don’t really know and I don’t think there is anyone to tell the tale of homophonic errors, like this one:
Is this correct? It depends on whom you ask. A Yahoo! writer and editor would think that who is the correct pronoun and have their been is really cool:
Well, there have been many, many errors on Yahoo! News. And these are just a few more.
Ack! Someone at Yahoo! Shine misspelled Auckland. And that’s not all! There’s the incorrect whom. It should be who because it’s the subject of the verb, which is either was or wasn’t.
As for the abbreviation a.k.a (for “also known as”), the Associated Press style is without periods (aka), while the American Heritage Dictionary’s style is AKA.
Whom would you ask for advice on grammar? I don’t think anyone would ask the writers and editors for Yahoo! Sports:
Terribly Write 