![]() In our 2016 survey, 71 percent of the Usage Panel accepted It isn't them that we have in mind, while only 53 percent accepted It isn't they that we have in mind. Indeed, in informal contexts the subjective pronoun can sound pretentious and even ridiculous, especially when the pronoun also functions as the object of a verb or preposition in the relative clause, as in It isn't them/they that we have in mind, where the third-person pronoun serves as both the complement of is and the object of have. ![]() This reasoning is faulty because the grammatical case of a noun or pronoun is really determined by its position in the sentence, not by what it refers to, and in anything but the most formal style the complement of be takes objective case: people say It's me, not It's I. The rule is based on the vague notion that the complement of be is being equated with the subject of the sentence and so it should be treated like the subject and have subjective case. Usage Note: Traditional grammar requires the subjective form of the pronoun in the predicate of the verb be: It is I (not me), That must be they (not them), and so forth.
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