Q. Please confirm or contradict the following. The special grammatical role played by the relative pronoun “whoever” leads to a case that few seem to know how to handle: when its role in the main clause appears to be objective, but its role in the subordinate clause is nominative.
For instance, I frequently read things like “We will give the prize to whomever runs the fastest.” This is incorrect; it should be “whoever.” The rule is that the case of the relative pronoun is governed by its role in the subordinate clause, not the main clause. Thus, in this case, it is the subject of “runs” and is therefore nominative. The object of “to” is the entire clause “whoever runs the fastest.”
If you agree with this analysis, please put something on your site about it that I can refer people to. I have some arguments I would like to win. :-)
Q. I answer our company’s main phone line, and frequently get calls for myself. Today when someone asked
for me saying, “Is Charlotte available?” I responded, “This
is she.” The caller promptly corrected me, informing me that I should have said, “This
is her.” Which is correct?
A. Your response was the correct one. “This is she” is grammatically correct. The
verb “to be” acts as a linking verb, equating subject and object. So this is she
and she is this; “she” and “this”
are one and the same, interchangeable, and to be truly interchangeable they must both play the same grammatical role—that
of the subject.
However, this rule gets broken all the time. I suspect that people expect an object (as is correct for constructions such
as “you slay me” or “what’s wrong
with me?” or “go talk to her”) so they choose an object,
unaware of the nature of a linking verb. Now both forms have come to be accepted if not acceptable; it’s
a matter of how formal you want to be. If you’re a 1950s-style Hollywood garage mechanic who grudgingly
picks up the phone, with greasy hands, when nobody’s “manning”
it, the conversation might go like this:
Hullo?
Hey, Charlie?
That’s me, Mac. Whaddya want?
You can try to avoid the issue by using your own name, rather than a pronoun: “this is Charlotte”
is never wrong.
The who/whom question is similar. Though “whom” is correct when the objective
form is called for, it can sound put on; it seems to draw attention to its own correctness. In any case, if we were all as
proper as you are, proper grammar wouldn’t sound wrong to anyone.