Answers: Do you use "that" or "who" when referring to... people, versus... objects?
When I was at school, we were given a simple rule - use 'who' (or whom) for people, 'that' for animals, and 'which' or 'that' for places or things. Simple. Straightforward. A rule I still use. But do our Sentinel friends use it?
In the years since I was taught that rule, things seem to have become more elastic.
One of the major problems with who/whom is which one to use. The first refers to a person who is the subject of the sentence; the second refers to a person who is the object of the sentence, and already I've used 'who' for that person, simply because of the way the clauses are worded. It helps if you can add 'to' to 'whom', for example,
"To whom were you talking?" Blair asked.
Unfortunately, that sounds very pedantic. On the other hand, "Who were you talking to?" sounds more natural than "Whom were you talking to?" although 'You' is the subject of the sentence and 'whom' the object. (Rearranged, the words would read 'You were talking to whom?' which sounds oh, so clumsy.)
"Naomi, this is Jim, from whom I rent a room," Blair said.
However, a quick glance at the ruling given by the British Council, the UK's international organisation for educational opportunities (that is, it teaches English all over the world), shows that today it's quite common to say "Naomi, this is Jim, who I rent a room from," Blair said.
(As an aside, that example ends Blair's sentence with a preposition. The idea that we shouldn't do that comes from applying the rules of Latin grammar to English, where in fact it doesn't apply.)
The British Council also says "We can use 'that' for people or things."
Using that as a guide, Blair's "This is Jim, who I rent a room from," could just as easily be, "This is Jim, that I rent a room from." However, even informal usage wouldn't normally say 'that' for a named person, only an unnamed one.
"The student that I was speaking to yesterday had an accident last night. He's in the hospital," Blair said.
This sounds perfectly natural, though it would be just as natural to omit the 'that'.
What it comes down to is that a lot of the time you could use either who or that, and in fact using 'that' could solve the problem of whether to use who or whom.
Sources
http://www.grammar-monster.com/lessons/prepositions_ending_a_sentence.htm
http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/english-grammar/pronouns/relative-pronouns
http://grammar.about.com/od/rs/g/relpronounterm.htm
In the years since I was taught that rule, things seem to have become more elastic.
One of the major problems with who/whom is which one to use. The first refers to a person who is the subject of the sentence; the second refers to a person who is the object of the sentence, and already I've used 'who' for that person, simply because of the way the clauses are worded. It helps if you can add 'to' to 'whom', for example,
"To whom were you talking?" Blair asked.
Unfortunately, that sounds very pedantic. On the other hand, "Who were you talking to?" sounds more natural than "Whom were you talking to?" although 'You' is the subject of the sentence and 'whom' the object. (Rearranged, the words would read 'You were talking to whom?' which sounds oh, so clumsy.)
"Naomi, this is Jim, from whom I rent a room," Blair said.
However, a quick glance at the ruling given by the British Council, the UK's international organisation for educational opportunities (that is, it teaches English all over the world), shows that today it's quite common to say "Naomi, this is Jim, who I rent a room from," Blair said.
(As an aside, that example ends Blair's sentence with a preposition. The idea that we shouldn't do that comes from applying the rules of Latin grammar to English, where in fact it doesn't apply.)
The British Council also says "We can use 'that' for people or things."
Using that as a guide, Blair's "This is Jim, who I rent a room from," could just as easily be, "This is Jim, that I rent a room from." However, even informal usage wouldn't normally say 'that' for a named person, only an unnamed one.
"The student that I was speaking to yesterday had an accident last night. He's in the hospital," Blair said.
This sounds perfectly natural, though it would be just as natural to omit the 'that'.
What it comes down to is that a lot of the time you could use either who or that, and in fact using 'that' could solve the problem of whether to use who or whom.
Sources
http://www.grammar-monster.com/lessons/prepositions_ending_a_sentence.htm
http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/english-grammar/pronouns/relative-pronouns
http://grammar.about.com/od/rs/g/relpronounterm.htm