User talk:83.104.229.109

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] PA 103

Thanks for your query. I appreciate that you asked me instead of reverting back. I don't recall all the technical terms, but it's got to do with the verbs "to believe" and "to be" being used in two ways; to use "whom," you'd be using "believe" as a so-called two-place transitive verb, as I recall, but I won't delve any deeper than that. Examples of the sentence you're querying:

  • B said that M and F, whom he believed to be good friends, had set up a business.
B believed them to be good friends; therefore, use whom.
  • B said that M and F, who he believed were good friends, had set up a business.
B believed they were good friends; therefore, use who.

So if you want "whom," just change "were" to "to be".

I hope this helps. More to the point, I hope it's right. ;-) SlimVirgin (talk) 10:30, July 13, 2005 (UTC)