The Usage of "them" & "whom"

[XinyiQiu]

Dear,

I was quite confused about the usage of "them" and "whom".

In Hungary, as in much of Eastern Europe, an overwhelming proportion of women work, many of them in middle management and light industry.
This sentence is correct according to the topic in the forum.
in-hungary-as-in-much-of-eastern-europe-t5864-30.html

But Ron also said in another topic in the forum.
There were 50 women, and many of them were brunettes.
This sentence is incorrect.

There were 50 women, many of whom were brunettes.
This sentence is correct.

So what is the difference between the two correct sentence? Why we use "them" in the first sentence while using "whom" in the second one?

[tim]

The reason Ron said that the first one is incorrect is because it basically places the second part of the sentence on equal footing with the first, when in reality it is intended to further clarify the information in the first half. There is nothing grammatically wrong with it; it just does not convey the presumed meaning properly.

[tim]

Notice also that there is a verb after the "whom" in the last example, but there is not a verb after the "them" in the other correct example. We could, for instance, say "There were 50 women, many of them brunettes."

[XinyiQiu]

Notice also that there is a verb after the "whom" in the last example, but there is not a verb after the "them" in the other correct example. We could, for instance, say "There were 50 women, many of them brunettes."

So if the author intent to add information that is not as important as the main sentence, we may not use “and + verb". Instead, we should use the structure "many of whom +verb" or "many of them+no verb".

[tim]

If the intent is to provide clarification for the first half of the sentence, then that would be a preferable way to do it.

[RonPurewal]

when 2 parallel ideas/sentences are separated by "and" (without any other connecting words -- i.e., NOT "and thus" or "and so" or anything like that), the point is to present 2 separate, independent ideas.

if the SECOND sentence is something that DESCRIBES or MODIFIES the FIRST sentence, then, "sentence1 AND sentence2" is thus a clearly inappropriate construction.
i mean, that's the whole reason why our language has ... modifiers!