It was almost exactly a year ago when I did the first show about Who Versus Whom.

In that show, I only covered the simple cases, and lately I've been getting questions

that made me think I should delve deeper into the topic.

So today's topic is Who Versus Whom Envanced.

Here's an example of the kind of questions that are coming in.

Derek from Oakland, California recently read a story in the Wall Street Journal about

restaurants that offer tasting menus that pair wine with food, and he came across this

sentence about the sommelier.

We never did meet his teammate, whom he said works the room in his absence.

Derek thought the hoom seemed out of place and asked me to explain why.

He's right, and I'll have a quick and dirty tip for you, but first I want to explain in

grammatical terms why it should be Who.

First, you have to separate out the clause that contains the Who or Whom.

All you need to care about is how the Who or Whom functions within that clause.

In the example sentence, we never did meet his teammate, who he said works the room in

his absence.

The last part, who he said works the room in his absence, is something called an adjective

clause.

That just means the whole thing functions as an adjective and tells us more about the

teammate, who is the teammate, someone who he says works the room in his absence.

The part that always seems to mess people up and clauses like that is the He says part.

Someone who He says works the room in his absence.

...