[Ads-l] that:who::whom:which?

[Jonathan Lighter]

Since the def. applies principally to animals (with theoretical human
clones confined to a parenthesis), "to which" would be the proper choice.

I suspect the presence of both the words "human" and "parent" disposed the
editor
unconsciously to choose "whom."

Unless he/she/they/it is a doting pet owner, of course.

JL


On Mon, Apr 18, 2016 at 12:03 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> I would think that here, as in many other contexts, "that" is used
> precisely to avoid the decision between "who" and "which", such as cases in
> which animals are the antecedents (especially pets):  a dog
> {that/?who/?which} had just been hit by a car...   Similarly for clones,
> I'd expect.  It's sort of like "that" is the "they" of relative pronouns.
>
> LH
>
>
> > On Apr 18, 2016, at 11:53 AM, Joel Berson <berson at ATT.NET> wrote:
> >
> > While looking in the OED for anything under "clone", n., that might
> relate to Wilson's question, I noticed sense 1.c.  "An animal or
> (theoretically) a person that is developed asexually from its parent to
> whom it is genetically identical."
> >
> > If one has used "that" in the first clause rather than "who" (because
> cloned persons are only theoretical?), then instead of "whom" in the second
> clause shouldn't one use "which"?
> >
> > Joel
> >
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