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Showing a baby bottle to my son I ask him "Who's that for?", obviously waiting for a "That's for me!" answer (which turns out to be just "Me!")

But I am not a native speaker and I kind of translate from my mother tongue but is this correct? How would a native speaker say that?

RegDwigнt
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hoang
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  • I'm not a native speaker, but it looks perfectly fine for me (aside from the unnecessary space in front of '!' and '?'). – SingerOfTheFall Oct 17 '12 at 13:08
  • @MattЭллен you are right! I have already been told that here http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/4618/is-where-are-you-going-to-correct. Call that the French written accent as it is the rule in French. – hoang Oct 17 '12 at 13:10
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    I'd say "Who's this for?" if I had the bottle in my hand. I'd say "Who's that for?" if the bottle were on a table or in a bottle warmer. –  Oct 17 '12 at 13:55
  • @BillFranke: English often has this where many other languages would use that. It seems like a very common mistake, anyway. – Jon Purdy Oct 17 '12 at 17:35
  • @Jon Purdy: The OP is a native speaker of French, which doesn't always distinguish between the two pronouns. Chinese and Japanese and English do. –  Oct 17 '12 at 18:42
  • @BillFranke: I grew up speaking English and French, and studied Chinese in college. While Chinese does make a distinction, it often is not the same as in English—you use 那(个), that, where English would use this or no word at all. That’s all I was saying—that the use is different, even if the “same” distinction is made. The only thing I know about Japanese demonstratives is that they have a proximal/medial/distal distinction, which English sorta has if you count yonder as distal and that as medial. – Jon Purdy Oct 17 '12 at 18:54
  • Japanese has three pronouns for the three distinctions you named, yes. I don't think we said "yonder" in New Jersey. It was usually "dat ovadair" (= "over there"). I haven't learned enough Chinese to know that level of usage. I'm familiar with the "here" (這裡) and "there" (那裡) level of survival Chinese and certain specialized words and phrases that I need to know because I live and work in Taiwan. –  Oct 17 '12 at 19:21

4 Answers4

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Fifty years ago, someone would have pointed out that:

  1. Prepositions should never be used as the last words in sentences.

  2. 'Who', governed by 'for' although not obviously so in this sentence, should be in the accusative case and thus be replaced by its variant 'whom'.

They would probably have demanded: "For whom is that?"

Today, about 100% of native speakers would use "Who is that for?" (we tend not to ellipt when speaking to very young children), or, as you say, "Who's that for?"

Bill the Lizard
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Edwin Ashworth
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    "Whom's that for?" would theoretically be technically superior ... but I don't recall ever hearing anyone say that. – Jay Oct 17 '12 at 13:54
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    I don't find "ellipt" in a dictionary. I take it that's intended to be the verb form of "ellipsis", but is that an actual word or did you just invent it? – Jay Oct 17 '12 at 13:55
  • Btw, was that really what the OP asked? (Also, cf. other answers and comments.) Ok, from the accept vote, we have to think so. – Kris Oct 17 '12 at 14:47
  • Did anyone really speak like that in the 60s? "For whom is that?" sounds so awkward and pretentious. – sourcenouveau Oct 17 '12 at 16:46
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    Should 'ellipt' be 'elide'? – Ian Mackinnon Oct 17 '12 at 17:13
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    @Jay, wiktionary says verb ellipt (“(linguistics) To omit (from an utterance) by ellipsis”) is a back-formation from ellipsis. – James Waldby - jwpat7 Oct 17 '12 at 17:23
  • @emddudley: Yes, some very old-fashioned and some very pretentious English teachers did, but we working-class kids didn't, and neither did our parents. But it's probably the case that the standard grammar books (Harbrace Handbook, I remember) and style manuals we used insisted on such constructions for formal written English. And then there was that novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. But most people didn't speak that way. –  Oct 17 '12 at 18:56
  • What I love about this response: "For whom is that?", is that the syntax used is very similar to Romance-Languages. "Para quien es?". It's funny, because English speakers (in my experience) think that kind of sentence structure is awkward... but it's more correct :) – jffgrdnr Oct 17 '12 at 20:28
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    Only if one insists that prescriptivism (or compliance with romance languages) is the controlling factor. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 23 '12 at 08:05
  • For whom is that? Just feels good. Whom is that for? Sounds impatient and demanding. Just in line with our fast paced lives nowadays. – DisplayName Mar 29 '14 at 10:05
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    For whom is that? Just doesn't feel good. See, I can do it too. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 29 '14 at 16:11
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If by “showing” a bottle you mean holding and displaying it, “Who's this for?” would be said far more frequently than “Who's that for?”. You may find Is there a clear delineation between the usages of 'this' and 'that' in American English? and linked questions of interest. Briefly, use this for items proximal, and that for distal.

Community
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James Waldby - jwpat7
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On one hand, the statement "For whom is this bottle intended?" is a more elegant way to ask the question.

If I were to ask my own child, I would probably use "Who's this (bottle) for?", almost exactly as you've phrased it in the question. I think toddlers deserve some syntactical leeway.

Zoot
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    You say you regard "For whom is this bottle intended?" as a more elegant formulation, but what you really mean, I think, is that it belongs to a more formal register. The relevant factor here is the type of audience you are addressing and the context (e.g. formal vs. informal, socially distant vs. socially intimate) in which you are doing so. I don't think most people would regard the register of "For whom is this bottle intended?" as the most appropriate one for talking to a toddler or baby (as you too have noted). – Erik Kowal Apr 19 '14 at 06:40
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    @Erik Kowal 'Whose Southern Comforter is this?'? – Edwin Ashworth Aug 27 '14 at 18:21
  • @EdwinAshworth - "What did you do with that baby?" - "Oh, I left him in the gin sling. He seems to enjoy it". – Erik Kowal Aug 28 '14 at 02:55
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You could also ask

"Whose is this?" (with or without "Is this yours?)"

The connotations are a bit different, but can be equally educational and playful for the child.

Merk
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