Whom anxiety?

[Laurence Horn]

At 6:07 PM -0400 6/29/11, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>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.)

But according to the prescriptive rule that some grammar checks abide
by...oops, by which some grammar checks abide, restrictive relatives
are always introduced by "that", regardless of animacy
considerations, so that's what would be relevant here.  (There's
certainly no implication of inanimacy in "the woman that I spoke to"
or "the man that spoke to me", although "who" would be equally
natural in such cases.)  The choice between "who" and "which" would
only surface in non-restrictives, where both prescriptive rules and
actual usage make "that" impossible. I could be wrong, of course, I
was just proposing this as a possible reason for the (first) "that"
in the example.

LH

>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
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org