Who walked 47 miles of barbed wire?

Bo Diddley did. At least that’s what he said he did in his 1956 song “Who Do You Love?” A whole host of singers, songwriters and bands claimed the same: The Doors, The Dead, The Stones, Patti Smith, Golden Earring and, most famously, George Thorogood. And they all belted out that song with heart, with gusto, with love, with improper terminology.

Yes. Grammatically speaking, the song should be “Whom Do You Love?”

“Come ON,” you gasp in horror. “Give it a rest already.”

Yeah, I hear you. I wouldn’t change those lyrics for all the money in your dwindling 401(k). The song rocks, as is, and that’s that.

Except for the purpose of this blog entry.

Hypothetically and only hypothetically, and only briefly for this grammar topic, I would change the title to “Whom Do You Love?” because the first word refers to the object of the expected reply: “Whom do I love, you ask? I love Bo.”

“I (subject) love (verb) Bo (object).” When you can turn the sentence around like that and determine if the who/whom word is the subject of the sentence, you use who. If the word is an object of the sentence, you use whom.

You’d like an explanation of subject and object? Here goes: A subject is the active thing in the sentence, the thing doing the action (the verb). In the above example, I is the subject because I is the one doing the loving (the verb). Bo is the object of the sentence because he is on the receiving end of the action (the verb); Bo is the one being loved.

It boils down to this:
Subject = who
Object = whom

The other thing to take into consideration is that who refers to humans and animals with a name (implying that you know a particular animal’s sex). Rover, who ate my shoe, is in big trouble. (Rover is the subject: Rover ate my shoe and Rover is in big trouble.) If you don’t know the name or sex of the dog that just wandered into your house and ate your shoe, you might say, “The dog that just ate my shoe is in big trouble.” (That replaces who because you don’t know the dog’s name — yet.) But if that’s the only thing you say, I don’t think grammar is your most pressing issue.

It is important to note that who is strictly for humans and named animals — not inanimate objects. Your car is an it, no matter if you name it “Rocket” or “Baby” or “Susie Q.” Please don’t refer to your 2005 yellow Bug or 1973 green Nova as a she. The same goes for countries, ships, airplanes and anything else without a physical pulse. They are things — glorious, heart-pound-inducing things worth celebrating. But not with poor pronoun choices.

They deserve better, don’t they?

Of course, Diddley’s song speaks of the nitty-gritty. It speaks to the bared soul who listens with intent. It gets down and dirty. It lays it all down on the line and doesn’t beg for nuthin’. “Who Do You Love?” is what it is: a song for the ages. And I don’t mess with that kind of heavy.

Happy trails!

SAK