Relative pronoun 'whom' vs.'who'

Anyone pl. tell whether ‘whom’ should be replaced by ‘who’ or the use of whom in the following sentence is correct.

‘The man whom I thought was thoroughly honest proved to be a swindler.’

Souba73

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As far as I know whom has been replaced by who in American English though using whom is still considered correct albeit a bit old fashioned. Let’s see if @Luschen agrees.

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Edited: After a bit of research, it looks like the fact that “who/whom” acts as the subject of the clause “who/whom was thoroughly honest” takes precedence here, so the correct word is the subjective "who"

I think the correct word in that sentence is “whom”, since it is acting as an object of the verb "thought’. Still, as Torsten said, most people seem to have given up on “whom”, so in informal writing or general conversation, “who” would be ok.

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‘The man whom I thought was thoroughly honest proved to be a swindler.’
The use of whom in the sentence is wrong. It should be who.

This is a case of ‘confusing clause’ as I call it and teach my students. Let’s see the sentence without that clause (I thought) for a moment and examine the sentence:

The man whom was thoroughly honest proved to be a swindler. (We cannot accept this sentence as correct for it has to be 'The man who was thoroughly honest proved to be a swindler.)

So, the correct sentence is: The man who, I thought, was thoroughly honest proved to be a swindler.

Let’s compare again with another pair of sentences.

  1. I wonder how Torsten and Luschen whom I consider to be good language coaches have answered the question that way.

  2. I wonder how Torsten and Luschen who, I believe/think, are good language coaches have answered the question that way.

(PS: Whether it is BrE or AmE, the appropriateness needs to be accepted)

I wish our Alan were here to moderate our views!

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Hello, Sir Luschen. I agree with you in that the correct word is “Whom” because “Whom” refers to the object “the man” while “who” refers to the subject “I”.

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Hello, Sir Anglophile.
Excellent explanation. What about " I thought (that) the man was thoroughly honest", Then the sentence could change to " the man whom I thought was thoroughly honest"?

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No Mona, I changed my mind, I agree with Anglophile that “who” is correct. I’m sorry my edited change was not clear. I probably should have deleted my original post.

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Hi Anglophile, i agree with you that “who” is correct. I am sorry my edited change was not clear.

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Mona_Rmzi

You sentence I thought (that) the man was thoroughly honest. is perfect.
But ‘the man whom I thought was thoroughly honest’ is NOT correct. You cannot ‘think the man’, perhaps you can think of the man.

If so, your second sentence could be: The man of whom I thought was thoroughly honest (It means ‘I thought of the man; he was thoroughly honest’)

It can still be recast as The man who/whom I thought of was thoroughly honest. (However, please note that the aspect we are discussing now is different from the one posed by the original question)

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I would have to disagree with you Anglophile. Let’s say you are “the man”. I could say “I think Anglophile is very skilled.”, which is perfectly correct. It means “I think of Anglophile as being very skilled.”, but this version seems unnecessarily complicated.

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Luschen, let me explain it as below.

I think (that) Anglophile is very skilled.”, which is perfectly correct. (YES)

It means “I think of Anglophile as being very skilled. (YES)

But not, I think Anglophile to be skilled. (I think him to be skilled - which is not acceptable but I consider him to be skilled is okay)

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How about these:
The man I thought was thoroughly honest proved to be a swindler.
The man I used to consider thoroughly honest proved to be a swindler.

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I’d say both are acceptable, Torsten. You have cleverly avoided using who or whom!
(In the first what is implied is who, and in the second whom.)

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Thank you very much, Sir Torsten, Sir Anglophile, and Sir Luschen.

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Hi Anglophile,
Your grammatical view on the above fortunately coincides with mine. Since Alan remains silent these days, I did not comment on the replies of Torsen and Luschen. This is a question of SSC CGL, which is one of the toughest competitive exams in India. I astonished to see that ‘whom’ is correct as per the answer key released by SSC. I faced an embarrassing situation when my students questioned my grammatical knowledge. However, there is a trend in contemporary English reg. the use of ‘who’ in place of ‘whom’, if not preceded by a preposition and that is also acceptable. Unfortunately, most of the English speaking people confuse subjective ‘who’ with objective ‘who’.
Souba73

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Dear Souba

I agree that there is a tendency to use who rather than whom in many cases. It’s acceptable in contexts like the following:

The man who I was talking to … (This is the modern trend and it is all right)
The man to whom I was talking … (Correct)
The man whom/who I was talking to … (Okay and acceptable)
(Here, as you know, you cannot say: The man *to who* I was talking …)

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