I comforted the lost boy, whom was shivering and cold, before the auth

why is it whom and not who

I agree with what kiranaimhigh has written above. That is an error in the Grammar Guide, one among a few I have caught while covering the material with a client. It would not make sense in the sentence at hand to say, him was shivering and cold; thus, the pronoun should be who instead. There are a few situations in which the simple trick referenced above is not quite so simple, and this occurs when speakers of English more commonly use the grammatically incorrect pronoun to begin with, as in the following dialogue:

Question: Who took the cookie from the cookie jar?
Answer: It was him. (Incorrect, since the full response would read, It was he who took the cookie...)
Response: Whom? (Incorrect, since him should have been he in the answer above.)

To be clear, I am not bashing the GMAT Club Grammar Guide, but as with many guidebooks, it does have a few issues. If and when you run into anything you do not understand, just bring up the reference in the forum.

Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew

Hi Sanjay, in the relative clause whom/who was shivering and cold, clearly whom/who is the subject of this clause.

Hence we need to use the subject pronoun who (remember whom is an object pronoun).

So, the correct sentence is:

I comforted the lost boy, who was shivering and cold, before the authorities arrived.

Hi Sanjay

The question of whether to use "who" or "whom" can be confusing. There is a simple rule that you can use to make the decision. But before that, let us understand a simple classification of pronouns.

Pronouns can act as the subject ie; protagonist/doer in a sentence. For eg: he, she, they, I, you etc.

eg: She gave John some money.

Pronouns can also act as the object ie; receiver of the action in a sentence. For eg: him, her, them, me, you etc.

eg: Tracy gave him some money.

Please note that "you" can act as both a subject pronoun and an object pronoun - you will have to decide which is the case by examining the sentence in question.

Now, to decide whether the appropriate usage is "who" or "whom", answer the question being asked in the sentence. If the answer is a subject pronoun, the correct usage would be "who". If the answer is an object pronoun, the correct usage would be "whom". Let us consider an example.

_________ wrote the book?

The answer to the above question would be "He/She wrote the book", never "Him/Her wrote the book". "He/She" are subject pronouns. Therefore, the correct way to frame the original question would be "Who wrote the book?".

__________ did Jason give the book to yesterday?

The answer to the above question would be "Jason gave the book to him/her", never "Jason gave the book to he/she". "Him/Her" are object pronouns. Therefore, the correct way to frame the original question would be "Whom did Jason give the book to yesterday?".

Hope this helps.