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I need help to verify if this sentence is correct. The original sentence was:

Please provide contact details below of a person within the organization who is legally permitted to verify your employment.

But then I was asked to add "or department" and now the sentence is:

Please provide contact details below of a person or department within the organization who is legally permitted to verify your employment.

I'm thinking that the use of "who" is not appropriate here. It doesn't sound right.

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    Perhaps you could replace “who” with “that”? – Benjamin Mar 09 '19 at 15:40
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    Of course you could replace who with that in any relative clause. – John Lawler Mar 09 '19 at 15:46
  • You can't replace "who" with "that" in non-defining relative clauses, nor in one or two defining relative clauses. And with personal antecedents, "who" is preferred over "that" when the relativized element is subject. – BillJ Mar 09 '19 at 17:27

1 Answers1

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You can drop the pronoun altogether:

Please provide contact details below of a person or department within the organization legally permitted to verify your employment.

Or you can rephrase the sentence slightly:

Please provide contact details below of a person or department within the organization with the legal permission to verify your employment.

Jason Bassford
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  • But that's not "dropping the pronoun altogether", as you put it, but replacing the relative clause with a past-participial one. Same meaning of course, but different syntax. – BillJ Mar 10 '19 at 07:54