Inanimate Whose

The inanimate ''whose'' refers to the use in English of the relative pronoun ''whose'' with non-personal antecedents, as in: "That's the car ''whose'' alarm keeps waking us up at night." The construction is also known as the ''whose'' inanimate, non-personal ''whose'', and neuter ''whose''.

The use of the inanimate ''whose'' dates from the 15th century, but since the 18th century has drawn criticism from those who consider ''whose'' to be the genitive (possessive) only of the relative pronoun ''who'' and therefore believe it should be restricted to personal antecedents. Critics of inanimate ''whose'' prefer constructions such as those using ''of which the'', which others find clumsy or overly formal.

Usage

Users of the inanimate ''whose'' employ it as a relative pronoun with non-personal antecedents, as in:

:: "That's the car ''whose'' alarm keeps waking us up at night."

Those who avoid using ''whose'' with non-personal antecedents assert that it is the genitive (possessive) of only the relative pronoun ''who''. They employ alternatives such as ''of which the'', as in:

:: "That's the car ''of which the'' alarm keeps waking us up at night."

:or

:: "That's the car ''the'' alarm ''of which'' keeps waking us up at night."

Those who object to this use of ''of which the'' find it clunky or overly formal.

The inanimate ''whose'' is restricted to the relative pronoun. English speakers do not use ''whose'' as a non-personal interrogative possessive: the ''whose'' in "''Whose'' car is this?" can refer only to a person.

Etymology and history

The Old English genitive of the neuter pronoun ' ('what') was '' hwæs'', which later evolved as ''whose'' into the genitive of ''which''. The first recorded instance of inanimate relative ''whose'' occurs in 1479, about 50 years after the first example of relative ''who''. There is not a great deal of data for the preceding centuries, so it is difficult to pin down its evolution. Attested usage is common in Early Modern English, with inanimate ''whose'' appearing repeatedly in the works of Shakespeare, in the King James Bible, and in the writings of Milton and others.

Old English had grammatical gender, and pronouns agreed with the grammatical gender of the nouns they referred to, regardless of the noun's innate gender. For example, the Old English ' ('wife') was neuter and referred to with the pronoun ' ('it'), and '' wīfmann'' ('woman') was masculine and referred to with the pronoun ' ('he'). English lost grammatical gender during the late Middle Ages, and the pronouns ''he'' and ''she'' came to refer to animate subjects of male (or indeterminate) and female biological gender, and ''it'' came to refer to inanimate subjects. The American philologist George Perkins Marsh posited that this animate–inanimate distinction led to an eventual discomfort with using ''whose'' to refer to both. In contrast, Richard Hogg speculates that causality is the other way around.

In some dialects, ''thats'' has developed as a colloquial genitive relative pronoun for non-personal antecedents, as in:

:: "That's the car ''thats'' alarm keeps waking us up at night."

Grammars and style guides

The earliest known objections to the inanimate ''whose'' date from the late 18th century. In 1764, the English grammarian Robert Lowth disapproved of the inanimate ''whose'' except in "the higher Poetry, which loves to consider everything as bearing a personal character". The English James Buchanan in his ''Regular English Syntax'' of 1767 considered inanimate ''whose'' an incorrect construction that occurs "in the lower kind of poetry and prose", but accepted it in "solemn poetry" when used for personification. In his ''Plain and Complete Grammar'' of 1772, Anselm Bayly accepted use of the inanimate ''whose''. The English grammarian Joseph Priestley wrote that ''whose'' "may be said to be the genitive of which", but objected to such use in the 3rd edition of '' The Rudiments of English Grammar'' in 1772: "The word ''whose'' begins likewise to be restricted to persons, but it is not done so generally but that good writers, and even in prose, use it when speaking of things. I do not think, however, that the construction is generally pleasing."

In the 6th edition of his ''A Dictionary of the English Language'' (1785), Samuel Johnson considered ''whose'' "rather the poetic than the regular genitive of ''which''". The American grammarian Lindley Murray wrote of the inanimate ''whose'' in his ''English Grammar'' of 1795, but his position on it is uncertain; he reprinted Priestly's opinion but also stated: "By the use of this license, one word is substituted for three". Other grammarians soon thereafter pronounced their disapproval, including Noah Webster in 1798.

More grammarians continued such disapproval into the 19th century. T. O. Churchill declared in ''A New Grammar of the English Language'' of 1823 that "this practice is now discountenanced by all correct writers". The American philologist George Perkins Marsh stated in his ''Lectures on the English Language'' of 1860: "At present, the use of ''whose'', the possessive of ''who'', is pretty generally confined to persons, or things personified, and we should scruple to say, 'I passed a house ''whose'' windows were open.' This is a modern, and indeed by no means yet fully established distinction." Henry Bradley in the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' asserted "usually replaced by ''of which'', except where the latter would produce an intolerably clumsy form".

Other grammarians began noticing discrepancies between usage and the assertions of those who prescribed against the inanimate ''whose''. The American Goold Brown, in his ''The Grammar of English Grammars'' of 1851, stated that ''whose'' "is sometimes used to supply the place of the possessive case, otherwise wanting, to the relative ''which''"; he cited a number of cases of its use and of those who prescribe against it and their rationales, and concluded: "Grammarians would perhaps differ less, if they read more." In ''The Standard of Usage in English'' of 1908, the American literary historian Thomas Lounsbury asserted that the inanimate ''whose'' "had been employed as a relative to antecedents denoting things without life by every author in our literature who is entitled to be called an authority". John Lesslie Hall published his research on the subject in his ''English Usage'' of 1917; he discovered over 1000 passages by about 140 authors from the 15th to the 20th centuries that used the inanimate ''whose'', including use by those who had objected to it or declared its use rare. Hall considered "authors that avoid ''whose'' ... a small minority" and stated that using ''of which the'' in its place was rare in spoken American English.

In his ''A Dictionary of Modern English Usage'' of 1926, H. W. Fowler derided those who prescribed against the inanimate ''whose'', writing: "in the starch that stiffens English style one of the most effective ingredients is the rule that ''whose'' shall refer only to persons"; he asserted that the alternative adds flexibility to style and proclaimed: "Let us, in the name of common sense, prohibit the prohibition of inanimate ''whose''". The revised versions of that style guide by Robert Burchfield (1996) and Jeremy Butterfield (2015) called the avoidance of the inanimate ''whose'' a "folk-belief". In his '' Plain Words'' of 1954, Ernest Gowers calls the "grammarians' rule" that ''whose'' "must not be used of inanimate objects ... a cramping one, productive of ugly sentences and a temptation to misplaced commas". He states that "sensible writers have always ignored the rule, and sensible grammarians have now abandoned it".

A survey conducted by Sterling A. Leonard in 1932 found that respondents considered the use of inanimate ''whose'' established; Raymond D. Crisp replicated the survey in 1971 and found that respondents considered the usage disputable. Mary Vaiana Taylor reported in 1974 that two-thirds of post-secondary teaching assistants would still mark the construction wrong on a student's paper.

''Merriam–Webster's Dictionary of English Usage'' states that, amongst "the current books" that discussed the subject as of the late 20th century, "not one of them finds nanimate''whose'' anything but standard". To the assertions of early grammarians, that dictionary counters that " s common occurrence in poetry undoubtedly owes more to its graceful quality than to any supposed love of personification among poets" and that its usage "is perhaps more likely to occur in the works of good writers than bad ones". It asserts that "notion that ''whose'' may not properly be used of anything except persons is a superstition" and such use is "entirely standard as an alternative to ''of which'' in all varieties of discourse". In '' Modern American Usage'', Bryan A. Garner calls the inanimate ''whose'' "often an inescapable way of avoiding clumsiness". ''The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language'' emphasizes that such "genitives ... are completely grammatical and by no means exceptional", with a note that "a number of usage manuals feel it necessary to point out that relative ''whose'' can have a non-personal antecedent: there are apparently some speakers who are inclined to think that it is restricted to personal antecedents". The 16th edition of ''The Chicago Manual of Style'' (2010) states that the construction is "widely accepted as preventing unnecessary awkwardness" and "lends greater smoothness" to prose than ''of which''.

References

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