Whom do you want to

Authoring TADS
1

Hi everyone,

The choice of missing object prompt to use Whom do you want to instead of Who do you want to confuses me. Is the following grammatically correct?

> attack

Whom do you want to attack?

> kiss

Whom do you want to kiss?
2 Likes
2

Grammatically, yes.

2 Likes
3

The short answer is “yes”.

If you want to preserve the traditional “who”/“whom” distinction, the trick to determining whether it is grammatical is to rephrase it using the word “he” or “him”. “I want to attack him” is grammatical; therefore “Whom do you want to attack?” is grammatical. If it had not been grammatical, “who” would have been the right word.

Of course, it does not follow that “who” would be ungrammatical in this context. It is now considered acceptable, and because “whom” is on its way out, “who” often sounds more natural to the modern ear.

6 Likes
4

Thank you Karona!

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5

Adding on, it’s because the parser is asking for the object (him/whom), not the subject (he/who). The parser is assuming that the subject is the player. Technically (i.e. obsoletely), “Who do you want to attack?” means “Who do you want the attacker to be?”, not “Who do you want to be attacked?”.