Column: A Word, Please: To whoever would challenge J.K. Rowling’s grammar, here’s what they should know

Knowing how to use “whom” is a lonely business. Sometimes you feel like no one’s on your team — not even the most successful wordsmiths of all time.

Exhibit A: This tweet from J.K. Rowling, in which the kajillion-selling author of the Harry Potter series reports having unsubscribed from another user’s tweets: “Just unfollowed a man whom I thought was smart and funny.”

When I read that, I was overcome with an almost uncontrollable urge to reply that she’d used “whom” wrong, perhaps including a brief primer on how to use it right. The impulse was strong, but I’m pleased to report that I took the road less obnoxious. I said nothing, which isn’t easy for an insufferable know-it-all like me.

When the urge had passed, I was glad I hadn’t exposed my baser smarty-pants impulses. Yes, I was embarrassed that I had felt that way in the first place, but at least I hadn’t given the world reason to be embarrassed for me.

Fast forward a few minutes. You know how, sometimes, hearing another person’s confession can make you feel better about yourself? Well, that’s how Random House copy editor Benjamin Dreyer came to my rescue. He tweeted that he’d just wrestled with an urge to “correct the world’s most powerful author on a who/whom thing” but then decided that would be “stupid.”

Vindication. If a cool guy like Dreyer struggles with the same impulses, maybe I’m not so bad. I booted up Microsoft Word to write this column. Halfway through, I took a little Twitter break. The first thing I saw was a statement from Donald Trump attorney Marc Kasowitz containing this line: “It is obvious that whomever is the source for the May 11, 2017 New York Times story got that information from the memos.” In the replies, a lone commenter pointed out that Kasowitz had used “whomever” wrong.

If you don’t want to be saddled with the burdensome knowledge of how to use “whom” correctly, you can still avoid errors. Here’s how: avoid “whom.” It’s optional, reserved for “formal” uses. So you never need to bother with it. And if you don’t use it at all, you can’t use it wrong as Rowling and Kasowitz did.

But if you want to join the Insufferable Smarty Pants Club, here’s what you need to know. “Who” is a subject and “whom” is an object. And anytime your pronoun is positioned as both an object and a subject, the subject form “wins.” Look again at Rowling’s tweet: “Just unfollowed a man whom I thought was smart and funny.”

The “whom” is positioned to be the object of the verb “thought.” But it’s also poised to be the subject of the verb “was.” And the overriding issue here is that “was” needs a subject. The man. To see why a subject is so necessary here, try plugging in the subject pronoun “he” and the object pronoun “him.” She thought he was smart and funny? Or she thought him was smart and funny? The subject pronoun “he” is clearly correct.

Like “he,” the pronoun “who” is a subject. Like “him,” the pronoun “whom” is an object. So saying “whom was smart and funny” is essentially saying “him was smart and funny.”

Try playing the plug-in game with Kasowitz’s clause: “Him was the source?” Or “he was the source?” “Whomever” is an object, just like “him.” “Whoever” is a subject, just like “he.” So once again plugging in “he” and “him” shows you that this clause needs the subject pronoun “whoever.”

Put more academically: The rules of grammar state that a whole clause can function as the object of a verb. In “I know he likes Jane,” the object of the verb is the whole clause that follows “know,” not just the first word that follows it. That clause needs a subject, which is why it would be wrong to say “I know him likes Jane.” Every clause needs a subject, even if the clause itself is an object.

Just don’t bother explaining that to high-powered attorneys and best-selling authors.

JUNE CASAGRANDE is the author of “The Best Punctuation Book, Period.” She can be reached at JuneTCN@aol.com.