Should it be "who or whom"?

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
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Prime Minister Lee paid tribute to Mr Ngiam, whom he said stood up for his intelligence as well as his willingness to speak his mind.

  1. Should it be “who” instead of “whom”?
  2. Should there be a comma after “said”?

Thanks.

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No, you need the relative pronoun ‘who’ here.

No.

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Hi Torsten,

Both “who” and “whom” can be used, especially since “whom” is the object of the verb. Admittedly, in present-day English “who” is used more often. “Whom” can still be used though, but it is a bit pretentious to my ears.

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I don’t think ‘whom’ would work here because ‘who’ substitutes Mr Ngiam:

Mr Ngiam stood up for his intelligence.

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Yes, indeed and that’s the point, because “he” refers to Prime Minister Lee, and is the subject of the verb. So, I still say either is acceptable.

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I’d recast the sentence as follows, which is partially in tune with what Torsten says:

Prime Minister Lee paid tribute to Mr Ngiam, who, he said, stood up for his intelligence as well as his willingness to speak his mind.

Let me explain it in some detail by parsing the sentence.

Prime Minister Lee paid tribute to Mr Ngiam. He said he (Mr Ngiam) stood up for his intelligence as well as willingness to speak his mind.

The relative pronoun to be used here should replace the noun/pronoun (Mr Ngiam/he) and connect these two sentences. Since the pronoun is in the nominative (subjective) case, we have to use the corresponding relative pronoun ‘who’.

Since the clause 'who stood up for his intelligence … ’ is non restrictive, we need to place a comma after ‘Mr Ngiam’ and two commas before and after ‘he said’.

Accordingly we have this sentence: Prime Minister Lee paid tribute to Mr Ngiam, who, he said, stood up for his intelligence as well as his willingness to speak his mind.

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Many thanks, Anglophile, for the detailed analytical reply!

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