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The girl I love hates me

Is the sentence grammatically correct?

My teacher says it should be

the girl who I love hates me

Edwin Cooper Van Dyke
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    Side problem with your teacher's version: "who" should be "whom" – Don Hatch Apr 04 '20 at 22:15
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    If your teacher is really that picky it should be 'the girl whom I love', but this borders on archaic. – user207421 Apr 04 '20 at 22:16
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    Your teacher can't be a native speaker of any form of standard English used in the northern hemisphere if he or she thinks there is anything wrong with "the girl I love". I would suspect that this person has not been exposed to any actual English literature or other language-based cultural artifacts: films, songs, .. – Kaz Apr 05 '20 at 01:20
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    @Kaz: The second form may or may not be "grammatically correct", but at a guess at least 99% of native English speakers would use the first. – jamesqf Apr 05 '20 at 01:58
  • If this is the case, who cares... – HingeSight Apr 05 '20 at 05:57
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    Pro tip: if your friend tells you: "The girl I love hates me", don't respond by correcting their grammar. – mwfearnley Apr 05 '20 at 15:07
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    whom is archaic. I have never heard anyone outside of an English class used it. – Keith Loughnane Apr 06 '20 at 09:36
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    @KeithLoughnane Depends where you live. Some of us do still speak English! "archaic" does not mean "my particular culture doesn't tend to use it at present" – Asteroids With Wings Apr 06 '20 at 11:59
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    @KeithLoughnane, it is still used often enough in written English. Not always correctly ;) – Carsten S Apr 06 '20 at 14:41
  • I hope your teacher gets shown a transcript of this! – Tim Apr 06 '20 at 15:33
  • Everyone who says "whom" is correct -- it's not. "Whom" is for indirect objects. As I understand it, you would use "The girl who I love" or "The girl to whom I have pledged my love." They are not interchangeable grammatically. "The girl who wore a dress" not "The girl whom wore a dress. No? – user8356 Apr 06 '20 at 17:15
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    @user8356: No. The reason it is "The girl who wore a dress" is because the girl is the subject of the dependent clause. Both direct and indirect objects will use whom, as well as prepositional objects (such as in your example `to whom I have pledged" -- that is not an indirect object either, it is the object of a preposition. An indirect object would be "me" in "Show me a picture of the girl you love."). – Ben Voigt Apr 06 '20 at 18:21
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    @KeithLoughnane I used to think the same thing, that "whom" is archaic; I don't recall ever hearing it used seriously throughout my childhood or high school. In fact I specifically remember in the 1985 movie "Real Genius" in which the Val Kilmer character used it consistently, and it seemed strange. That said, I've since then been in different regions and subcultures and found that "whom" is certainly used in some of them, so I no longer think it's archaic. – Don Hatch Apr 06 '20 at 18:58
  • @BenVoigt: That's a great explanation without too much jargon. You're right, I mixed up use of 'whom' as the object of a preposition with an indirect object. People, go with what Ben wrote. But what about 'the girl whom I love' vs. 'who I love?' – user8356 Apr 07 '20 at 19:21

3 Answers3

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Unfortunately, your teacher is wrong.

A relative pronoun can be dropped when the relative clause has a non-subject gap, that is, a missing element that is not functioning as the subject of the clause. In this case, the missing element is the direct object of the verb "love". Therefore, the relative pronoun can be safely omitted.

The girl [(who) I love ___ ] hates me

(The '___' indicates the gap)

Now compare:

*She is the girl [___ hates me]

The sentence above is ungrammatical. That's because the gap is in the subject position. It should be:

She is the girl who [___ hates me]

Mohd Zulkanien Sarbini
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I hope your teacher didn't say that! The first is perfectly proper but for the second to be grammatical it would have to be "The girl whom I love"!

user247327
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    Modern usage allows who in place of whom (in most cases) – Jeffrey Apr 04 '20 at 23:07
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    The "who" is acceptable objective case in modern English. – Acccumulation Apr 04 '20 at 23:32
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    @user247327 It could be that only Valley Girls used who instead of whom in 1920, but today it is "who" as an object is acceptable even in formal speaking and writing. That ship sailed decades ago. I like "whom" and use it myself, but it's just a personal choice. – Kaz Apr 05 '20 at 01:17
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    In modern English, the use of "who" in place of "whom" is widely accepted. The only place you can't use "who" is when it is directly preceded by a preposition: *"to who you're talking?". – Mohd Zulkanien Sarbini Apr 05 '20 at 01:42
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    @user178049 "To who you're talking?" isn't grammatical. "To whom are you talking?" is grammatical but pretentiously archaic. "Who are you talking to?" is modern English. And nobody (except possibly a few Americans who haven't given up obsolete expressions) would say "Whom are you talking to?" – alephzero Apr 05 '20 at 02:03
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    @alephzero Prepositional stranding is informal. "Whom", on the other hand, is highly formal. The awkwardness of "whom you're talking to?" is probably due to the conflicting styles. But it is still grammatical, at least according to some style guides. – Mohd Zulkanien Sarbini Apr 05 '20 at 03:35
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    Please [edit] this to add quotes/references to reliable sources who support your claim "the girl who I love" is ungrammatical. – curiousdannii Apr 05 '20 at 06:10
  • @user178049 For a question, it would have to be "are you", not "you're/you are". – mwfearnley Apr 05 '20 at 15:04
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    @mwfearley Aah.. Yes exactly. I thought it was a relative clause. – Mohd Zulkanien Sarbini Apr 05 '20 at 15:09
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    @user178049 I think this may be a regional thing: I've certainly never found "whom" to be considered "formal" in British English. – Chronocidal Apr 05 '20 at 20:24
  • @alephzero Why "Americans" specifically? – Asteroids With Wings Apr 06 '20 at 12:00
  • You must have a cloth ear if you think that anybody would ever say "the girl whom I love". It is true that some people still use 'whom', but never in this context. – TonyK Apr 06 '20 at 15:22
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    @alephzero To really drive it home, "To whom you're talking?" isn't that grammatical either, and "To who are you talking?" doesn't really sound that bad to my ears (though obviously I would use something more "normal" like "Who are you talking to?"). – JMac Apr 06 '20 at 20:24
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    @Chronocidal Whom is more formal in some dialects (actually, probably more in some sociolects) than others, but it is marked for formality everywhere, also in BrE. In informal spoken structures, you will almost never hear it. Things like, “Oi, whom do you think you’re talking to?” or “Whom are you talking to?” are highly unlikely everywhere. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Apr 06 '20 at 21:28
  • @JanusBahsJacquet If you're being formal, then the subject complement means the answer would be "It is he" / "it is she", which would make "who are you talking to?" correct, but "I am talking to her/him" means "to whom are you talking?" :P But, I think the real point here is that what some places would consider to be "normal", others would considered "uneducated", while what other consider "normal" can be considered "formal" elsewhere, while the typical balance of language lies somewhere between the two. That sound 'bout right, innit? – Chronocidal Apr 07 '20 at 07:46
  • @Chronocidal No, in “Who are you talking to?”, who remains the object of the preposition to; there is no subject complement in that sentence. I should have been a bit clearer above: whom is marked for formality everywhere as a free alternant with who in non-subjective position. As the object of a preposition, whom is (almost) mandatory if it directly follows the preposition – but this construction is inherently marked as formal, so the marking applies even here. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Apr 07 '20 at 07:51
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In the US such an instance of "who"/"whom" would be considered redundant or stuffy, and the usual usage would be:

The noun that I verb opposite-verb(s) me.

Or, the implied version:

The noun I verb opposite-verb(s) me.

Note: "noun who" vs. "noun that", the rule seems to be that for a proper noun, (one that refers to a specific individual, or emphasizes a person's unique traits), use who; and for a noun that emphasizes class or set membership, (i.e. the class or set of all beloved young women), use that.

So if there were three girls named Mary standing in a row, then to say:

The Mary who I love is that girl on the right.

...would distinguish the individual Mary #3 as your favorite, who happens to be girl #3 as well.

agc
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    There are various pro-con usage articles about who vs. that online, but SFAIK those tend to take several pages to say what's summarized above, making it a bit pointless to reference them... – agc Apr 05 '20 at 18:29