Macmillan Holdings, LLC. Grammar Girl, Grammar Girl's, QDnow, and Quick and Dirty Tips are all trademarks of Macmillan Holdings, LLC. Can you use "whose" to refer to inanimate objects? John Murray Hill grammar Man I believed everything you said until your example: "Although the car’s windshield wipers weren’t working, it was driving in the fast lane". What? The wipers or the car? Terrible English!!! http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/whose-for-inanimate-objects.aspx?commentid=19764#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/whose-for-inanimate-objects.aspx?commentid=19764#Comments Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:34:05 GMT jeff grammar too long. just say: we use whose for inanimate objects. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/whose-for-inanimate-objects.aspx?commentid=16691#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/whose-for-inanimate-objects.aspx?commentid=16691#Comments Mon, 27 Apr 2009 02:59:26 GMT Pankaj Kishor Verma grammar Dear GG, i appreciate your suggestion that whose can be both "animate" as well as "inanimate" things...and many famous authors have also done this. OK, agreed. I just want to ask if the following sentences are not grammatically correct and mean the same what Mike said: "The car, windshield wipers of which weren't working, was driving in the fast lane. The tree, leaves of which were falling, seems to be dying. " GG, I think above sentences are perfectly correct. They may not be as beautiful as Mike's original sentences (using "whose"). But they have the same meaning. Isn't it GG. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/whose-for-inanimate-objects.aspx?commentid=16555#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/whose-for-inanimate-objects.aspx?commentid=16555#Comments Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:35:50 GMT Pankaj grammar Dear GG, i appreciate your suggestion that whose can be both "animate" as well as "inanimate" things...and many famous authors have also done this. OK, agreed. I just want to ask if the following sentences are not grammatically correct and mean the same what Mike said: "The car, windshield wipers of which weren't working, was driving in the fast lane. The tree, leaves of which were falling, seems to be dying. " GG, I think above sentences are perfectly correct. They may not be as beautiful as Mike's original sentences (using "whose"). But they have the same meaning. Isn't it GG. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/whose-for-inanimate-objects.aspx?commentid=16554#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/whose-for-inanimate-objects.aspx?commentid=16554#Comments Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:33:22 GMT Lika grammar What about "which" in sentences like: Loans which amount exceeds XXX are attributed to the competence of the General Meeting of Shareholders. A theft which value is equivalent to or exceeds XXX is considered a grave offence. Or is use of "which" in such instances absolutely out of question? Thanks! http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/whose-for-inanimate-objects.aspx?commentid=16284#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/whose-for-inanimate-objects.aspx?commentid=16284#Comments Sat, 28 Mar 2009 22:29:51 GMT Jake grammar Dear GG, I don't care for the 'although' rewrite because the general meaning of the sentence changes from a matter of fact description to a statement of 'ought', as if it should only be in the fast lane if its wipers were working. After all, no one said it was raining. What about: 'The car that had wipers that didn't work was driving in the fast lane.' ? Or, 'the car having wipers that didn't work was driving in the fast lane.'? http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/whose-for-inanimate-objects.aspx?commentid=16203#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/whose-for-inanimate-objects.aspx?commentid=16203#Comments Sat, 21 Mar 2009 18:18:34 GMT Abel grammar I don´t understand this sentence I hope you can help me: "My friend whose wife is a doctor, works in Lima" so who works in Lima ?? "My friend" or "his Wife" I will appreciat your help very much... http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/whose-for-inanimate-objects.aspx?commentid=14067#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/whose-for-inanimate-objects.aspx?commentid=14067#Comments Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:56:33 GMT Graeme McRae grammar Isn't it a mistake to say "the car was driving..."? It would be more accurate to say "the car was being driven...", and this is not just an active vs. passive issue because the active form is just plain wrong because the car is not driving, period. Rather, it is being driven. This strikes me as similar to a number of other cases, such as imply/infer, subtend/is subtended by (a real killer in geometry!), and one distinction made in the podcast previous to this one: graduate/is graduated by. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/whose-for-inanimate-objects.aspx?commentid=13142#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/whose-for-inanimate-objects.aspx?commentid=13142#Comments Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:45:30 GMT Brian grammar The last example sentence ("This is one case whose cure could be worse than the disease.") would be incorrect. "Whose" would not replace "in which." And if you insisted on making the replacement, the sentence would need to read, "This is one case whose cure could be worse than ITS disease." http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/whose-for-inanimate-objects.aspx?commentid=13073#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/whose-for-inanimate-objects.aspx?commentid=13073#Comments Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:56:54 GMT Laura grammar why is it that we can't use a possessive form of 'that'? Granted I'm not sure where or if an apostrophe is needed, but I think the phrase "the car, thats wipers weren't working, was in the fast lane" rolls pretty well off my tounge. I think a possessive 'that' makes the most sense, since it would go well with the rules for 'who' and 'that'. Also, using "with" seems to work fairly well with both examples: the car with the broken wipers, or the tree with the falling leaves etc. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/whose-for-inanimate-objects.aspx?commentid=12846#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/whose-for-inanimate-objects.aspx?commentid=12846#Comments Sat, 31 May 2008 23:04:09 GMT Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:34:05 GMT http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/whose-for-inanimate-objects.aspx feedback@quickanddirtytips.com (Managing Editor) feedback@quickanddirtytips.com (Webmaster) en-us