I was kind of relieved to know that not all of my answers were wrong.
I’m studying using the free online TOEIC test preparation site (toeic-online-test.com/) and some of the answers I get have made me confused. I appreciate if you could sometimes verify that my answers are correct.
About the last question, “whoever” and " whomever", I am still not so clear about it. “I gave it to whomever derserving it” sounds more like it, but never mind.
"Briefly, this is the trick: who = he (subject pronouns) whom = him (object pronouns)
To determine whether to use whoever or whomever, here is the trick:
him + he = whoever
him + him = whomever
Give it to whoever/whomever asks for it first.
Give it to him. He asks for it first.
Therefore, Give it to whoever asks for it first.
We will hire whoever/whomever you recommend.
We will hire him. You recommend him.
him + him = whomever
We will hire whoever/whomever is most qualified.
We will hire him. He is most qualified.
him + he = whoever
When the entire whoever/whomever clause is the subject of the verb following the clause, look inside the clause to determine whether to use whoever or whomever.
Examples:
Whoever is elected will serve a four-year term.
Whoever is elected is the subject of will serve.
Whoever is the subject of is.
Whomever you elect will serve a four-year term.
Whomever you elect is the subject of will serve.
Whomever is the object of you elect." data.grammarbook.com/blog/whowho … -whomever/
“I gave it to whomever/whoever deserving it” is wrong whichever you choose.
As far as the orginal is concerned, “We gave it to whomever was deserving” sounds wrong to me. I would use “whoever”. However, I am happy to be corrected if anyone is certain that it should be “whomever”.
May I most respectfully disagree with you? I feel that it is very important to know the difference. I think that your speaking (and writing) correct English will have an important role in your career.
Eugene has given us an excellent explanation of why “whoever” is the correct answer.
Let’s look at your sentence: “We gave it to ______ was deserving.”
IF the word “whoever” did not exist, then my dictionary tells me that we would have to say something like:
“We gave it to any person who was deserving [of the honor].”
As you can see, “any person who” is the subject of “was deserving [of the honor].”
Here is a sentence from one of my favorite books:
“Give the package to whoever calls for it.”
James
That favorite book is: DESCRIPTIVE ENGLISH GRAMMAR (1950) by Professors House and Harman, page 358.
I agree, I was going to say you could rewrite the sentence as “We gave it to he who was deserving.” Him would sound odd here, so I think who is better them whom in this context.
Although, as I mentioned, “whoever” sounds right to me in the original sentence, I am slightly doubtful that “he” is technically the best choice here.
I was about to say that “whomever” is luckily becoming obsolete even more quickly than “whom”, so students of the future won’t have to trouble themselves over it, but then I saw this surprising graph:
A. whomever (Correct Answer)
B. whoever (Your Answer)
C. whosoever
D. whatever
I thought:
We gave it to someone
Someone (subject = who) was deserving it
Kumiko
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[color=blue]I agree that “whoever” is correct. My initial analysis was flawed. I was thrown off by “was deserving”. With the more common ‘deserved it’, it is even clearer that “whoever” is correct. Sorry about that!
Thank you very much for all the replies. The detailed explanaition by Lugene helped me a lot, and the tequnique (?) by James M and Luschen to replace the whoever/whomever part with “any person who” or “he who was…” also is also very helpful. I will recall this whenever I see whoever/whomever sentences.
The one more thing I want to ask, if I could, in the expressions like “deserve the honor” or “deserve the title”, is there a difference in the meanings if someone deserves the honor / deservees “of” the honor ?
