My mother, who was a tall woman, was a brilliant bridge player.Who can also be used as a relative clause, often used to refer back to someone in a sentence, or to refer to a group of people or animals. Notice that in the above examples, the sentences would still make sense if who was replaced with what person or which person/which persons. I will decide what to do when we know who has made the team.You will often find who is used as a question like this:īut the interrogative form of who is not always used as a direct question: Who has the meaning of what or which person(s) when it’s in its interrogative (questioning) form. In the sentences below, Harvey and they are the subjects. As you remember, the subject of a sentence is the one doing the action. Who is a subject pronoun, meaning it is used in a sentence or clause as a subject. First of all, let’s look at the definition of each word: Who Definition However, once you get the knack of it, deciding how to use who, whose and whom can be quite easy. Even experienced academics may have difficulty deciding how to use these words, especially when it comes to the difference between who and whom.

Who, whom and whose are common and important English words, yet they are often mixed up or misunderstood in speech and writing.

Use of what who which whom why how