To Who it May Concern

Several months ago I was watching a talk show and there was confusion about the correct way to word a sentence. As the show progressed, many audience members offered tips and tricks to help remember some of our (many!) grammar rules. One of them was the use of WHO and WHOM.

Do you know this one? I didn't. Other than "To Whom it May Concern" and "For Whom the Bell Tolls" - I thought "whom" was a forgotten word. Kind of like "thee" and "thou".

But here's the trick:
If you can answer the question with HE, use WHO.
If you can answer the question with HIM, use WHOM.

Examples:
Who is going to the party? He is going to the party.
To whom does that belong? It belongs to him.

Sounds weird, doesn't it? That's because we've gotten so used to saying, "Who does that belong to?" (And isn't there some pesky rule about ending a sentence with a preposition?")

It's a little sad how poorly my generation (and eek! have you seen the group behind me?) can speak and write. Who/Whom doesn't really bother me much (probably because I misuse it so frequently myself). It's the "their/they're/there and you're/your and it's/its that make me crazy.