3

Possible Duplicate:
Referring to some attribute of an inanimate object — use “who's”?

I noticed the use of "whose" in the following sentence I wrote does not refer to a person:

A recent post on Less Wrong, Levels of Action, reminded me of a game I created whose dynamics I wanted to explore.

I use "whose" in this way fairly often. I'm just wondering, is it correct Standard English? If not, what would be a more correct way of expressing the same thing?

Community
  • 1
luqui
  • 225

1 Answers1

7

It is in American English - according to Mr Webster himself! enter image description here

A philosophical and practical grammar of the English language By Noah Webster

I suppose in BE the 'correct' form might be: "the dynamics of which I wanted to explore" - but that sounds like you you are trying to be German.

mgb
  • 24,191
  • Do you mind using the formatting for a link to hide URLs like that? ;) – MrHen Apr 14 '11 at 19:12
  • @MrHen - linkifier was having some issues with the url - fixed it – mgb Apr 14 '11 at 19:14
  • +1 to this answer. The usual problem concerns using "that" for persons (i.e., "he is the criminal that stole the sofa"). But "whose" to indicate possession is unobjectionable. – The Raven Apr 14 '11 at 19:19
  • Meh. That bashing of German is completely uncalled for and completely wrong. The whole whose issue is a very, very English phenomenon. No German in his right mind would ever replace "whose dynamics" with "the dynamics of which", whether in German or in English. – RegDwigнt Apr 14 '11 at 19:27
  • @Reg - Blame Conan Doyle: "Only a German is so uncourteous to his verbs" – mgb Apr 14 '11 at 20:05
  • Oh, make no mistake, I am very well aware how very awful The Awful German Language is in general! But this one thing just ain't true. I guess that's because dessen and deren aren't verbs. – RegDwigнt Apr 14 '11 at 20:17
  • It was more the point that in English you can use the 'wrong' word if it makes it more readable - there are rules but you can ignore them – mgb Apr 14 '11 at 20:22