Whom anxiety?

[Joel S. Berson]

Ah, I think I understand the point.  All three - that and which/who -
are involved in the rules for restrictive/non-restrictive clauses.  I
was thinking only of the "*by* individual investors", a prepositional
phrase which might lead a writer (as it has often led me) to be
anxious about which of the two the following who/whom (relative?)
clause should use -- "by" would take a "whom", but in the relative
clause it might correctly need the nominative.

Joel

At 6/30/2011 11:05 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>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
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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