Whose, Who's, Who, and Whom

Great is our admiration of the orator who speaks with fluency and discretion

Marcus Tullius Cicero

The differences and uses of the English words whose, who's, who, and whom, is often confusing for people learning and writing English so here I explain how and when to use each.

Who and Whom

Who and whom are both pronouns used to refer to people. The key difference lies in their grammatical function within a sentence. Think of them like the personal pronouns he/she and him/her.

• Who acts as the subject of a verb. It performs the action. Examples: Who ate the last cookie? Who is going to the party?

  
  

• Whom acts as the object of a verb or preposition. It receives the action. Examples: To whom did you give the book? Whom did you see at the store?"

To decide between who and whom, try answering the question with a personal pronoun. If you'd use he or she, use who. If you'd use him or her, use whom. For example,

Who is coming? She is coming, so use who. Whom are you calling? I'm calling him, so use whom.

Whose and Who's

Whose and who's are a pair of English words that always cause confusion to people learning English due to their similar sound. However, their meanings are entirely different.

• Whose is a possessive pronoun, indicating ownership. It answers the question to whom does this belong?Examples: Whose car is this? The dog, whose tail was wagging, looked happy. Whose phone is ringing?

  
  

• Who's is a contraction of either who is or who has. The apostrophe (') replaces the missing letters.

  Examples: Who's coming to dinner? Who's seen this movie?

  
  

To decide between whose and who's, expand the word in your mind. If the sentence still makes sense when you replace it with who is or who has, use who's. If it doesn't, use whose. For example,

• The woman who is dog is barking, makes no sense. But when you use whose, it does. The woman whose dog is barking.

• Likewise Who's that? is incorrect. Replace it with who is. Who is that?

  
  

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