ShmoopTube

00:03

Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by "who" and "whom." Think of them as brothers

00:08

who look alike, but get really annoyed when people confuse them.

00:11

How would you correct the following sentence, if it needs correcting at all?

00:14

The students, who had been studying aeronautics, were thrilled to watch the space shuttle take off.

00:25

Let's dive right into the elimination process here.

00:28

Choice (C) is so glaringly wrong, we can't stand it being in our lives for a second longer.

00:32

The underlined clause requires a relative pronoun to introduce it.

00:36

All choice (C) has to offer is a pitiful "they," which doesn't work at all, so it has to go.

00:40

(D) is all kinds of wrong too. "Which" is usually used to refer to non-human things, like objects.

00:45

So, unless these students were tables or doormats, (D) is definitely incorrect.

00:49

Now we're left with choices (A) and (B), and it comes down to deciding whether "who" or

00:53

"whom" is correct in the sentence.

00:56

The rule of thumb here is that "who" is the subject pronoun, while "whom" is the object.

01:01

The pronoun we need has to be in the subjective case because the students it stands in for

01:07

are the ones who've been studying aeronautics.

01:09

This means that "who" is correct, making (A) the right answer.

01:13

Wow, how come no teacher ever took us to watch a space shuttle launch?

01:16

Hm. Young kids plus large explosive machinery. Guess we can see their reasoning.

Full Transcript