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Date: | Fri, 29 Oct 2004 10:25:00 -0700 |
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The usual assumption is that who/whom should agree with the immediate
clause that it appears in. In this case, that is the clause "who you
truly are."
The role of 'who' in this clause is subject complement, not an object.
(cf. "You truly are [the person].") That means, according to the
prescriptive rules, it should be nominative case (who), not objective
case (whom). So 'whom' would be a hypercorrection.
Karl Hagen
Department of English
Mount St. Mary's College
Kent Johnson wrote:
>I think I figured it out.
>
>What the sentence is really saying is "Return without delay to become
>*the person* (who) you truly are." The relative pronoun is simply
>dropped in the original sentence, so the "whom," though it sounds a bit
>funny, is actually correct?
>
>Am I right?
>
>Kent, the beginning grammarian
>
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