Use 'former' or 'latter' instead of 'him': A reminder of the Danger accompanying the use of Pronouns

Saturday, November 7, 2009

While reading today's newspaper, I stumbled upon the following sentence:-

A political aide to the Deputy Minister has urged the police to hasten its investigation on a leader who allegedly punched him three months ago.

Now ambiguity has arisen whether it is the political aide or the Deputy Minister who was punched.

There can be an easy solution to the situation. If it is the political aide, the sentence can be recast as "A political aide to the Deputy Minister has urged the police to hasten its investigation on a leader who allegedly punched the former three months ago."

However, it is the Deputy Minister, the sentence should be "A political aide to the Deputy Minister has urged the police to hasten its investigation on a leader who allegedly punched the latter three months ago."

A slip of the tongue?

The following sentence which appears to be a response to an interview has been included in a newspaper reporting people's reactions to the impending imposition of service tax by the Malaysian Government on credit cards in 2010.

Yeoh, who has six credit cards, does not think the small amount of tax will deter people from cancelling their credit cards, especially if they need the credit.

The sentence has got me perplexed over its meaning, and I believe it should have been

either: Yeoh, who has six credit cards, does not think the small amount of tax will deter people from applying for their credit cards, especially if they need the credit.

or : Yeoh, who has six credit cards, does not think the small amount of tax will lead (or cause) people to cancel their credit cards, especially if they need the credit.

Who and whom revisited

The Star Online > Lifefocus
Friday October 16, 2009

Who and whom revisited

OPEN CHANNEL

I refer to Kengt’s response on the use of “who” and “whom” in Mind Our English, Sept 18 which was in reference to another query in MOE on Aug 27. I appreciate what Kengt was trying to do, but his explanation might not go down well with the man on the street.

Let me explain it in simple terms:

“Who” usually takes a verb after it.

e.g: He is the man who helped me yesterday.

Notice “who” is followed by the verb “helped”.

Whom usually takes a noun after it.

e.g: Sally is a friend whom we have known for 20 years.

Notice “whom” is followed by the noun “we”.

Perhaps this simple explanation would help. – Joseph David

Note from Fadzilah Amin: Joseph David’s answer to Kengt, says that “who” usually takes a verb after it and “whom” usually takes a noun. This rule, in my opinion, is too simplistic. Even in his example, “Sally is a friend whom we have known for 20 years.” “we” is NOT a noun but a pronoun.

Even if we modify the rule to: “ ‘Who’ usually takes a verb after it and ‘whom’ usually takes a noun or a pronoun.”, we would not be correct. Look at this heading on a BBC website:

“Who’s backing whom in US race?”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/ 7227350.stm

“Who” is indeed followed by the noun (this should actually be verb) “is”, but “whom” is followed by a preposition – “in”.

And take this quotation: “This is called the ‘cultural village’ and is full of people who are associated with culture, a lot of whom work with the Sierra Leone Dance Troupe ...”

http://www.guardianweekly.co.uk/?page=editorial&id=51&catID=9

“Whom” here is followed by a verb.

As to Kengt’s statement that we should not “concern ourselves so much with informal usage”, I disagree with this.

When it comes to using British English, we can sound too formal (i.e. stilted) when we use “whom” in certain situations.

For example, it sounds more natural to say “Who are you travelling with?” instead of “With whom are you travelling?”

Another example can be drawn from the name of the BBC investigation mentioned in the following quotation:

“They will feature in the first part of the three-part BBC investigation, entitled Who’s Watching Who?”

http://www.thisisdorset.net/news/tidnews/4317615.Spied_upon_mum_from_Poole_in_BBC_documentary/

“Who’s watching who?” does not follow Oh Teik Theam’s guide, quoted by Kengt, because when translated into personal pronouns, we could say, for example, “We are watching them.” and so the second “who” ought to be “whom” in a formal style, as in “Who’s backing whom in US race?” that I quoted earlier. But the BBC opted for the less formal style for the name of their programme.

There is more to the use of “who” and “whom” in British English than can be summed up in a sentence or two.

But for those learners who may be confused about when to use “who” and when to use “whom”, it may be safer to stick to Oh Teik Theam’s guide.

© 1995-2009 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd (Co No 10894-D)

The above are the responses to my newspaper article posted in this blog on September 28, 2009.

Note from Fadzilah Amin has claimed that I made the statement that we should not “concern ourselves so much with informal usage”. This appears arbitrary to me based on the following points.

(A) Quoting a book, I did say, "In practice, “who” is widely used in both roles (subject and object), especially in speech; “whom” is regarded as rather formal."

(B) I did say, "Perhaps, some writers indulge in informal usages, sometimes, for being natural or for fluency.

(C) That we do not concern ourselves so much with informal usage is merely a suggestion to those who have confusion which can be compounded by concern over informal usage.

‘A few’ or ‘few’

A reader's question: I’m a little confused as to when to use “a few” and “few”. For example, we can write “We saw a few pelicans on the beach” or “We saw few pelicans on the beach”. Could you please explain the usage?

Answer: When you write “We saw a few pelicans on the beach.” it means you saw a small number of pelicans there. But when you write “We saw few pelicans on the beach.”, it means you expected to see more pelicans, but you only saw “few”, which in your sentence means “not enough” or “not many”.

The above question and answer appear, among others, in a column promoting the correct use of English of a popular national English daily.

Not convinced over the explanations given for the seond sentence, I have sent my following comments to the editor without receiving any response:-

What is explained above is in line with the definitions of 'few' in any dictionary.

However, many including myself understand the second sentence with the definitions of 'few' in thesaurus (http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/few) which are (as an adjective) hardly any and (as a pronoun) scarcely any.

Following up on "Commensurate"

My posting of August 24, 2009 has stated that the word "Commensurate" is not a verb but an adjective as can be seen from a newspaper article titled Verbs gone astray by a Dr. Lim.

There is a need for the Sports Ministry, sponsors and the Association to check the slide for the under achievements which does not commensurate with the funds injected.

The preceding sentence is taken from a newspaper with "commensurate" therein again used as a verb apart from the irregularity of matching the plural noun of achievements with a singular helping verb of does.

The sentence should have been written as "There is a need for the Sports Ministry, sponsors and the Association to check the slide for the under achievements which are not commensurate with the funds injected.