Learn English – With whom used on things instead of persons

meaning-in-contextword-usage

My native language is German. I always want to say something like:

I have this function with whom I can do this or that

is this actually possible to say?

I always thought that with whom can just be used with persons.

Best Answer

The words who and whom are both pronouns.

We use who when referring to a subject in a clause. And we use Whom when referring to the object of a clause. Example:

Martha(subject) Killed Manny(object).

if we use Who and Whom in the sentence above(this might sound weird), it becomes:

Who(subject pronoun) killed whom(object pronoun)?

Who and whom are personal pronoun which means that they are always used with living beings.

So, it is not possible to say:

I have this function with whom I can do this or that

Alternatively, you can say:

I have this function to do this/that! As MaulikV said.

or

I have this function for this/that [purpose/need].

As for more information, read this somewhat similar question and this

Araucaria:

We can use who for Subjects, Objects and Objects of prepositions. We don't need to use whom for these. We can use whom whenever the relative pronoun isn't the Subject of the main verb in the relative clause.

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