Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2009

But...but... Isn't that why we are all reading this newsgroup?
Picking nits from each other is a bonding experience!
It's not much fun when someone shows up covered head to toe
with them.  But  - ah! - the pleasure found in finding a nit on a
usually carefully groomed troop-member!

That's a fairly gentle intro, but I fear it wouldn't get to the
letters column unscathed.

<q> (from the feedback editor who used to be the letters editor)
When I was letters editor a perennial debate concerned the extent to
which sub-editors should “save” correspondents from themselves.
Generally, we correct all spelling and most grammatical errors in
readers' letters, but aim to preserve their individual “voice”.
</q>

On Oct 19, 12:52 am, Athel Cornish-Bowden <acorn...@ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr>
wrote:

Is it perfectly standard usage?  I could think of several English
teachers I've known who would disagree.

When commenting on "whose inanimate", it's a good idea to specify
which "whose" you are thinking of, the relative pronoun or the
interrogative pronoun.

Scanning Fowler's discussion that you have quoted in part, I don't see
any mention of interrogative vs relative "whose", and I don't see
anything about the interrogative in Gowers's Second Edition of
Fowler--again scanning quickly.  But Burchfield in his seriously
misnamed _The New Fowler's Modern English Usage_ starts out his
"whose" article with a brief dismissal of the interrogative use:

   No problems arise in questions: in these _whose_ always
   refers to a person.

But he quotes Fowler in his discussion of the relative-pronoun. He
calls the restriction of "whose" to persons a "folk-belief".

   Fowler (1926) was at his most vehement in attacking the
   rigidity and the prevalence of the folk-belief.

After giving some examples and quoting Fowler some more, he says

   [Fowler] concluded his article by declaring: 'Let us, in
   the name of common sense, prohibit the prohibition of
   _whose_ inanimate; good writing is surely difficult
   enough without the forbidding of things that have
   historical grammar, and present intelligibility, and
   obvious convenience, on their side, and lack only
   --starch.'

I, for one, would not be comfortable using interrogative "whose" to
refer to a dog, like in "Whose tail is wagging?"  But a respected
regular has recently said that he will use interrogative "whose"
without reservation.

There's no good single English word to replace interrogative "whose"
for use with a non-person.  The sense needed could be expressed as
"which's", pronounced ['wItS@z], but I doubt that a significant number
of people would find that acceptable.

   

Or if they're following the 1662 BCP (I think), they'll say, "Our
Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name..."

Then why have two words if one will do the job?

Name is a nic but yes, I'm currently in Russia. However, I'm not a
citizen, just a visitor. English is my native language. (But not
American either.)