Talk:Inanimate whose

Sources

This is looking much better! Missing some key sources like The Chicago Manual of Style (current 16th ed., and maybe an older one if there's a contrast), and New Hart's Rules (both Ritter and Waddingham eds.), the leading academic style guides for US and UK book publishers, respectively. Maybe also see what earlier Hart's Rules said, e.g. mid-century, though I don't have one, only the final edition from the 1980s, and the original from the turn of the previous century.

Aggregated overviews of some others could be useful, e.g.:

• News style guides, including AP Stylebook and NYT for the US, and The Economist and The Guardian for the UK, though more than two each would be more representative, and insurance against cherry-picking. It's important to note that the single-newspaper ones are house style, and shouldn't be confused with works intended as general-public usage guides; they're all specifically for journalism.
• Academic journal-oriented style guides, including at least Scientific Style and Format, MLA Handbook, and MHRA Style Guide, though an aggregation of others that are discipline-specific and "organizational" might also be useful (medical AMA, marketing AMA, APA, etc.)
• Additional 20th c. dictionaries would also be useful; there are prescriptivism/descriptivism splits that verge on epic (e.g. Webster's Third International taking a descriptive stance led to the American Heritage Dictionary as a negative reaction, though the current ed. of the latter is as descriptive as Webster's Third was).

We can dispense with "popularized grammar" books like Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, etc.; and with university textbooks like Bedford Manual, etc.; they're all directly derivative of stuff already cited.

I'm concerned that material against inanimate whose, critical of some usage of it, or neutrally observing the dispute, is missing after the 19th century; it isn't plausible that all grammar and style books were in favor of the style after that period, or there wouldn't still be any dispute, and (e.g.) 1970s proofreaders in large numbers would not have still considered the usage to be outright wrong. But this isn't a "fatal" problem; the clear RS consensus is that the usage is well attested and well accepted in general, even if there are hold-outs (like me!) who don't agree the inanimate usage is preferable, especially in formal writing. Finding those missing sources is more a matter of completing the history, and it won't affect the overall direction of the article.

An upshot of this is that we may not be clearly enough distinguishing between written and spoken usage, though some quotes are clearly applying specifically to the latter. It's an unmistakeable fact that norms for written and spoken usage differ on many matters (and even within the two for different usage registers).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:34, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

SMcCandlish: New Hart's Rules doesn't seem to speak on inanimate whose, though it uses it ("unpublished sources whose full forms are unduly lengthy" (p. 336), "The level of a building whose floor is at" (p. 410)), so the source is unusuable. I've added a cite to Chicago. You've got a hidden comment in there calling for more quotes—my issue with that (as I said on your talk page) is that we'd end up with a page full of tedious, redundant quotes. Surely there's a better way to handle it? I suppose I could shunt the quotes themselves into endnotes and sum them up in the text, but still ... it feels more like listing all the Pokémons and their abilities, rather than just summing up the topic.

I can't find any 20th-century supporters of the prescription against inanimate whose, and have begun assuming that its persistence is from word of mouth rather than contemporary sources. If you can prove me wrong and dig up something, please do. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:33, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Well, we could reduce the amount of direct quotation as the article expands, and reserve it for "activistic" statements ("myth", "folk-belief", etc.), and for the antique prose of the older sources. I think the quotes (where needed) are good in the main text, since it establishes and illustrates the nature of the dispute and the views in it very clearly, while a dry recitation of factoids (who opposed/supported in what year) would be dull and less informative. On the 20th c. stuff: I will add it to my to-do list, though there are bigger fish to fry in our articles (and sections) on English usage, and the present article is in vastly improved shape. PS: There isn't a problem noting that NHR has no rule on the matter, but illustrates the inanimate usage, with page citations to examples. People are going to think the article is incomplete if the main UK style guide is just missing.  :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:49, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

SMcCandlish—no, there's definitely a problem with noting it, if another source hasn't noted it. That'd be straight-up WP:OR. At best we could put the fact in a hidden comment (I'll do that). Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:03, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

I can't agree. It's exactly the same thing as noting, for example, that a particular cat pedigree registry publishes no breed standard for the Cymric cat, but that its Manx cat standard mentions "Cymric" as a synonym. Or that a book called The History of 20th Century Warfare did not have an entire chapter on the Gulf War, being published shortly after it began, but did mention it in passing in a closing list of ongoing conflicts, under the name Kuwait War. We do this all the time and it's perfectly legitimate. We've never been limited to relying on sources for only what they intend to focus on, and have always been free to cite what they actually say. The OR would be claiming that NHR supports/advises inanimate whose and/or is against the animate-only viewpoint (or "would be" or "should be considered as", etc.), since it says nothing like that. It's fine to simply note the absence of the chapter or rule on it, and note its actual usage. This is also why we can use a work, without any additional source, to produce a plot summary of that work. This isn't OR, it's just normal source usage here.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:44, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

I can't buy that. It's not only OR, but it's making a judgement about which sources are highly valued enough to note their having skipped the topic—where do we draw the line? If you and I disagree on where that line is, on what basis do we settle who's "right"? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:56, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

We make that judgement every single day, too, in determining source reliability and author/publisher reputability, winnowing sometimes hundreds of potential sources to those that are clearly the most important to include (if you want to see this in real-time, get involved in a topic like electronic cigarettes or GMOs, where there may be more than a hundred literature reviews – not papers but review of papers, so thousands of papers – in peer reviewed sources per year. We have no choice but to focus on those with the best real-world reputations, as best we can determine them, or editing would just cease under the weight.

This isn't a new question, and has come up many times before. What we do as editors, at all, is by necessity "original research" in a distance sense - we must gather sources and use our own judgement about their merit and interpretation, then reword them to avoid plagiarism, to compensate for editorial biases, and much else. This isn't what WP:NOR means by "original research".

OR means making an unsupported, novel claim of fact (or sneakily steering the reader into making one) that is the product of WP:AEIS (analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis). Deciding NHR is a major source for this kind of topic isn't OR. It's a necessary practice to internally decide that a source is important to include. After we have done so, it's normal, expected editing to note what they say – and, when it seems pertinent, to note if they don't say anything at all, e.g. "[notable cancer organization here] has no position statement on electronic cigarettes", after a litany of citations to AMA, BMJ, etc., positions statements on them pro and con, if the absence of the one is likely to strike readers as an error of omission. In any article on English style and usage, absence of NHR will be taken, especially by British readers, and an error of omission. But I'm disinclined to fight about this; you're obviously upset with me from what you posted on the /GA1 page, so trying to resolve this now is unlikely to be productive.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:21, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I can't check at the moment, but it wouldn't surprise me if New Hart's Rules doesn't address the issue. Like older versions of The Chicago Manual of Style (prior to the 15th ed.), it concentrates on "typesetting" issues and leaves grammar and writing style to Fowler's. I would guess that any statements in CMS about inanimate whose are from the chapter written by Bryan Garner, so it might be better to go straight to Garner's Modern English Usage and its predecessors. --Boson (talk) 00:49, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Another reason to avoid noting absences in sources that haven't been noted by other sources. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:59, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Will take a while to check. Even the 12th ed. of Chicago is organized similarly to and with much of the coverage of the 16th (plus all the typography and layout stuff), but its index is terrible. E.g., has no entry for "pronouns".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:36, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Potential clarifications

In the Usage section, there are 2 examples for avoiding the inanimate whose. I can not speak for British speakers, but no native American English speaker would ever use those sentences. A correct way to avoid the inanimate whose would be:

"That's the car with the alarm that keeps waking us up at night."

User talk:mal11 — Preceding undated comment added 01:35, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Inanimate whose/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: J Milburn (talk · contribs) 02:00, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

What a brilliant topic. I can't pass up the chance to review this, though my comments may come in dribs and drabs. Josh Milburn (talk) 02:00, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

• "pronoun hwæt ('what')" Why the single quotes? Is there something the the MOS about this?

  SMcCandlish did that. He's pushed to have that included in the MoS, and it now says "Simple glosses that translate or define unfamiliar terms usually take single quotes". I disagree with it, and voiced that objection with examples here. I'm not aware of where a consensus was formed to include this in the MoS, and would prefer he didn't unilaterally change an established style. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:48, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

  MOS:SINGLE has said linguistic glosses go in single quotes since 2015 [1], after repeated discussions .... If someone disagrees that MoS should say this, they can open yet another discussion about it at WT:MOS. We don't resist guidelines we personally quibble with by writing non-compliant material or opposing others editing it to be compliant. [Original, longer comment refactored to below the collapse box.] — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:43, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Off-topic arguments that belong at WT:MOS or user talk

MOS:SINGLE has said linguistic glosses go in single quotes since 2015 [2], after repeated discussions in which there was a preponderance of evidence of this usage being standardized in the field, and little opposition but "IDONTLIKEIT" and "IDONTKNOWIT" arguments. It's been the practice in linguistic materials, on both sides of the Atlantic, and in multiple languages, for generations. It's a useful one, distinguishing glosses from examples and quotations using double quotation marks. If someone disagrees that MoS should say this, they can open yet another discussion about it at WT:MOS. We don't resist guidelines we personally quibble with by writing non-compliant material or opposing others editing it to be compliant. No one is ever going to personally be a fan of every single line-item in MoS. It's our built-by-years-of-compromise house style, and we deal with it. PS: The style has also long been built into our language templates, e.g. {{lang-de}}. MoS including it was not a "new change", it was updating the guideline to account for actual practice, on and off WP.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:43, 20 July 2017 (UTC) SMcCandlish: "on ... WP" is fantastically untrue, as you're well aware (and J Milburn can attest). You have an annoying habit of declaring disagreement WP:IDONTLIKEIT, which is a non-argument. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:14, 20 July 2017 (UTC) I strongly agree with the essay section WP:IDONTLIKEIT, so I'm not sure what you mean. I don't know why you think it's "fantastically untrue"; our language templates had standardized on [naturally] what linguistics had standardized on, before MoS got around to it, and this is clearly demonstrable in page history. If you just mean "not every single editor knows about or goes along with it", that is true of every single line-item in every guideline and policy, so I don't see what your point is. Again, this isn't the place for an MoS debate; WT:MOS is. My purpose here was pointing out that, in answer the reviewer's question, the MOS does in fact call for this style; and to redirect any "challenge the MoS" stuff to the place where that belongs, which isn't a GA review.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:45, 20 July 2017 (UTC) SMcCandlish: "I strongly agree with ..." I didn't say you disagreed with IDONTLIKEIT; I said you have an anoying habit of labelling disagreement as IDONTLIKEIT. Your edit did nothing to improve the page, but only enforced your preferred choice of formatting, because YOUDONTLIKE the formatting that's there, which is not prescribed against in the MoS. It's hard to see how you've "improved" the article by doing so, and it certainly came as a surprise to J Milburn after his 400+ GAN reviews (and who knows how many FAC reviews). Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:41, 20 July 2017 (UTC) "Curly Turkey is angry with SMcCandlish again for no apparent reason" isn't relevant for this page either. I don't know why you're turning this into a personalized matter, but I'm not interested in continuing in that vein. You invited my observation and participation here; it makes no sense to me for you to react with hostility when I make the simplest copyedits that don't even alter the meaning of the wording. Let's get through this quickly: Editing to comply with guidelines has nothing to do with my preferences. There are at least 50 things in MoS I don't personally agree with, yet I still ensure our articles do them; that's part of WP editorial diligence. This improves our articles by making them consistent with the guidelines; we would not have guidelines if following them was not expected and not considered an improvement. You're not reading or absorbing the actual arguments I'm making. When A has sources and standards and B has preferences and handwaving, A is not making an ILIKEIT argument, B is. I mention ILIKEIT if and only if that kind of pseudo-argument is being presented. It's just presented frequently when it comes to style matters (it's the nature of the beast). J Milburn's awareness or lack thereof about one MoS line item among zillions is irrelevant trivia. It's in there, so it gets done, we move on. MoS's primary purpose is after-creation cleanup edits by gnomes; no one is required to absorb it before they write, only to not disrupt later editors doing compliance passes. Fist-shaking about minor bits of guideline wording and whether one likes it has nothing to do with GAN (or FAC). Attempting to drag J Milburn into a tedious and futile "fight the guidelines!" windmill tilt is apt to discourage him from reviewing any more articles like this. Can we be done with this now? Or take it to user talk? Or something other that continuing this here?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:56, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

• "The first recorded instance of inanimate whose occurs in 1479" Worth quoting?

  It appears to be somewhere in one of these letters, but it's not quoted and I'm not having luck finding it. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:21, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

• "Attested usage increased from the Elizabethan era onward, appearing repeatedly" Attested usage didn't appear repeatedly; the inanimate whose did.

  That's what I thought. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:20, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

  Easy fix: "...onward, with the style appearing...".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:43, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

  SMcCandlish: But what was the issue with the original wording? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:17, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

  Edit summary had it already, but to repeat: the material was out of chron. order and had no contextual info about what historical era the works were from. In more detail: It matters because it was a period of intense and compressed change in English usage, due to both the KJB and Shakespeare's works in particular, respectively the most and the second most frequent sources of exactly-worded, then-novel expressions that became everyday English usage, many of them still current. The two bodies of work had a tremendous influence on how English eventually standardized, though this isn't article in which to get into the details. It's important for a similar reason to be clear that the Webster we mention was the author of a particular dictionary (and not be confused with some other random Webster like Daniel Webster from the same era and region). Noah Webster's work solidified the fork (intentionally, as a political and patriotism matter) between American and British English, and actually helped create it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:45, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

  Actually Elizabethan English is better than Elizabethan era as the link to use here. I tried a re-edit that used this; hopefully it will be satisfactory.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:07, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

• "of what was referred to" Would "of that which was referred to" be preferable?

  Makes me wonder if it can be reworded to use an inanimate whose. >;-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:07, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

• "wīf ('wife') was neuter and referred to with the pronoun hit ('it'), and wīfmann ('woman')" Again with the single quotes- I'm not saying it's wrong, but I thought it worth flagging

  MOS:SINGLE  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:43, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

• "In some dialects, thats has developed as a colloquial genitive relative pronoun for non-personal antecedents" Could you perhaps provide some examples of the dialects in which this is common?
  • I'm not having any luck here ... Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:20, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

    It's unlikely to be specific dialects; rather, it's a low-register usage, of informal speech. We'd need a reliable source to tie it to a particular region, and even then there may be an error of omission (e.g., a source saying it's common in Texas or whatever isn't a source that it's not use in Massachusetts or South Africa). Barring more sources on it, we're probably saying all we can about it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:43, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

• grammarian is a dablink
  • I'm assuming it should be Philology. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:20, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

    Nah, that's an academic discipline; we're using "grammarian" in the least precise usage (one that wasn't even in the DAB page until I added it just now) to refer to writers of prescriptive grammar works – some of them predating the emergence of philology. So, the informative link would be Linguistic prescription or its more clearly related redirect Prescriptive grammar.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:43, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

• "The English James Buchanan in his Regular English syntax of 1767" Could this be massaged a little?

  I thought that one looked funny, too, but "James Buchanan, of England, in his" wasn't any better. Maybe "Writing in England in 1767, James"? The concept of "British" had not really arisen yet, so we shouldn't use an anachronism.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:43, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

  "English" isn't an anachronism. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:18, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

  Yes, that's my point; we can't replace it with "British", so some rewording that keeps "English" or "England" is needed, one that reads well.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:45, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

• "Henry Bradley in the Oxford English Dictionary asserted "usually replaced by of which, except where the latter would produce an intolerably clumsy form"." "...asserted that the inanimate whose is..." or "...asserted that the inanimate whose should "usually" be...", perhaps?
• "he cited a number of cases of its use and of those who prescribe against it and their rationales, and concluded" I'm struggling with this sentence.

  "he cited a number of cases of its use, and discussed the rationales of those who prescribe against it. He concluded"  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:43, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

• "Thomas Lounsbury asserted the inanimate" that?
  • Sure. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:20, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
• "found that respondents considered it disputable" It's not completely obvious to me what this means; especially given your "however" in the following line.

  "found that respondents to the survey considered the prohibition disputable"? The "However" is marker of transition, between the two preceding sentences about opinion in favor of i-whose, to discussion of actual [1970s] practice to enforce against it. Without something like that, the 1970s sentence is a confusing non sequitur.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:43, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

  You've misparsed the paragraph. The sentence before your "however" establishes that feelings against inanimate whose incresed between the 1930s and 1970s; what follows "however" quantifies that. "However" makes gibberish of this. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:44, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

  Ah! Yes, I see. Others will not make the mistake if "it disputable" is changed to "inanimate whose disputable". The "it" doesn't have a very clear referent. I agree that the "However," doesn't belong.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:01, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

• "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"." How about "It asserts that the "notion that whose may not properly be used of anything except persons is a superstition" and that such use is "entirely standard as an alternative to of which in all varieties of discourse"."?
• "states the construction is" that?
  • Okay. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:20, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
• I feel the lead could better reflect what appears to be the story being told in the final section; once upon a time, people didn't like it, but now, style guides are open to it and even claim that its unacceptability is a myth.
• Also, I think it might be nice to lead (in place of a picture) with a passage from Shakespeare or similar in which it is used; or even a photo of it appearing on a page (I know that's use in some other more "literary" articles).

  I've added an image from the KJV. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 06:12, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

That's what jumps out at me on a first read-through. Great topic and article. Josh Milburn (talk) 02:35, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry things haven't quite worked out here. I'm closing the review at this time at the nominator's request; perhaps it's something that could be renominated in a few weeks' time when things have simmered down a little. It's a great topic and a great article, and I commend you both for taking it on. Josh Milburn (talk) 00:25, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

To be clear here, like I was in user talk: I fully support this being a GA; none of my minor twiddles and quibbles should affect that.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:51, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

I would also like to see this article as a GA; the article can be renominated when ready, and I encourage it! Josh Milburn (talk) 22:52, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

@Curly Turkey: Renom time? I'm not going to nit-pick at a thing in it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  03:37, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

I just recently had another GAN pulled because I didn't have the time to deal with it. Too busy for content these days. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 08:27, 17 December 2017 (UTC)