Whom anxiety?

[Joel S. Berson]

I'm confused, Larry.  My question is not about the choice between
"that" and "which" but about the choice between "that" and "who" for
people -- "investors that purchased".  (And not the later "securities
that" -- I too would not use "which" there.)

Looking now at John Baker's response, I see it as a plausible
explanation.  (It's hard to determine context -- individual or
"corporate" investors -- from the first sentence of an article!)

Joel

At 6/29/2011 01:50 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>At 1:41 PM -0400 6/29/11, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>>The first sentence in the lead article of today's NYTimes, writen by
>>Nelson D. Schwartz and Eric Dash:
>>
>>"Bank of America is completing an agreement to pay $8.6 billion to
>>settle claims by investors that purchased mortgage securities that
>>soured when the housing bubble burst, according to people briefed on
>>the deal."
>>
>>Did the writers have whom anxiety, fretting over whether to use
>>"whom" or "who" in the phrase "by investors that", and evaded the question?
>I doubt it; "whom" seems pretty unlikely for anyone to use in this
>context (as opposed to others in which it's equally "incorrect").  I
>think it's more plausible that this is a case of "that" selected
>(either optionally or obligatorily depending on one's grammar-check
>and style sheet) to introduce restrictive relative clauses.  If it
>had been a non-restrictive--
>
>...to settle claims by careless or over-optimistic investors, who had
>purchased mortgage securities..."
>
>--both prescriptive edicts and ordinary usage agree on "who" over
>"that".  But for restrictives, there's a mismatch between what people
>do (which often involves "who/which") and what grammar books and
>grammar-checks tell them to do (which mandates "that").  I think we
>and/or LanguageLog have discussed this issue before.
>
>LH
>
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org