Discussion Groups / English Usage / November 2006

That's correct.

That's not. You could sometimes say, "Sue was the one who borrowed my
bike."

The normal, idiomatic casting would be "It was Sue who borrowed my
bike", or perhaps "Sue was the person who borrowed my bike."

"Sue was who borrowed my bike" is technically sound but not idiomatic,
save perhaps as the answer to a direct question such as "Who was it
that borrowed your bike?"

We can say things like "He was not who he seemed to be" and draw no
notice, yet the structure is identical:

. Subject -- copulative verb -- predicate adjective clause (led by
relative pronoun)

It is not simply that that example is a negative casting: the form also
works for some positives: "This is where she lives."  But, for some
reason, the form "Sue was who borrowed my bike" does not sit
comfortably, and we feel a need to interject a phrase such as "the
person" after the verb.

tetxu (or somebody else of the same name) wrote thusly in message
<1164230552.674980.194610@f16g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>:

South Wales English would say "It was Sue it was who borrowed my bike."

No, it's not correct.  Sue went by bus today.  It was Sally who
borrowed your bike.
DC