If I'm being honest, I'm still not totally comfortable using “whose” for inanimate objects. I'm 100% a rephraser in that respect, and will rewrite the sentence to give it a more natural flow. However, a few of you wrote asking about using “which” in place of “whose”, and I wanted to address those questions and figure out if “which” in that case was a proper use of the word.
The sample phrase, for the sake of simplicity: “I placed the iPhone whose screen was broken in the bin.”
Several commenters asked if it wouldn't be correct to write, “I placed the iPhone which screen was broken in the bin.”
Here's why my grammatical and editorial ear thinks that's wrong.
Why You Can't Use “Which” to Replace “Whose”
As mentioned in the previous entry regarding whose/of which, of which can be substituted if the sentence is rephrased (e.g., “I placed the iPhone, the screen of which was broken, in the bin.”). But simply replacing “whose” with “which” doesn't work.
Why? Because “which” isn't necessarily a possessive noun.
“Whose” defines some sort of ownership, but “which” by itself doesn't. Dictionary.com has several definitions for “which” and “whose”, but not until “which” adds prepositions does it become a possessive (e.g. of which, on which). On its own, “which” is more of a questioning word that needs additional specification to determine exactly what you're talking about.
“Of Which” vs. “Whose”
In the previous example, you would be correct if you wrote, “I placed the iPhone, the screen of which was broken, in the bin.”
You would also be correct in writing, “I placed the iPhone whose screen was broken in the bin.”
But you would not be correct in simply changing out which for whose because which by itself does not function as a possessive noun, while whose on its own does indicate possession. You need that additional preposition to make things more specific.
Personally, I'd much rather rewrite the sentence than go back and forth about “which” and “whose” on inanimate objects. It's generally the best way to avoid debate, and pretty universally accepted as an okay way of putting together a sentence.
PRACTICE
Let's put this lesson to practice by first writing five sentences using “whose” (e.g. “I placed the iPhone whose screen was broken in the bin.” and then rewriting those five sentences so they don't sound weird (e.g. “I place the iPhone with the broken screen in the bin.”)
When you've written your five “whose” sentences and five rewritten sentences, share them in the comments section. Then, make sure to comment on a few practices by your fellow writers to let them know if they got it right!
Good luck!
He drives a car whose fenders are rusted.
He drives a car the fenders of which are rusted.
He drives a car with rusted fenders.
I bought an umbrella whose spokes were broken.
I bought an umbrella the spokes of which were broken.
I bought an umbrella with broken spokes.
My aunt had a box whose contents were secret.
My aunt had a box in which the contents were secret.
My aunt had a box containing something secret.
I’m only going to do three examples. Although each example is correct, the 3rd of each set reads more smoothly. I usually rephrase a sentence to avoid the 1st and 2nd construction.
Adelaide
Of course you could always say, “The iPhone’s screen had a bloody big crack in it, so I chucked it in the bin.” 😀
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I’ve come across Dickens and Nancy Mitford using ‘whose’ for inanimate objects. If it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me.
I would like to make an idea clear and grammatically correct, but I cannot figure out a way to phrase it without using “whose”. The idea is to establish a rule in which a Supervisor can pick an Assistant, but only if it accords with rules established by the Manager. The manager determines who is eligible to become an Assistant, but not by naming specific people.
The Manager just gives a list of job titles “whose” incumbents are eligible.
How can I phrase this? It’s a brain teaser. I can’t say the Manager gives a list of job titles which are eligible, because that’s not correct either–you can’t appoint a job title to help you out. If I say “the Manager can specify who is eligible to serve, by job title”, that’s not 100% clear–I don’t want someone to think the Manager can just give a person’s name and their job title. Either everyone who has a certain job title is eligible, or no one is.
is it possible if you say:
The manager with eligible incumbents just gives a list of job titles.
how about the following?
The Manager just gives a list of job titles for eligible incumbents?
There is a similar use of ‘which’ I strongly recalled seeing a couple of times, and dug up these examples:
“The Boer, with his usual craft, had decided that the British Government should set him financially on his feet, which feet he meant promptly to use for running away from his responsibilities.” (‘South Africa and the Transvaal War’, Louis Creswicke, 1902)
“I remember while rummaging in history to find proofs and illustrations of “The Materialistic Conception of History,” which conception I was to defend presently in a public debate, gathering the scheme of a course of four lectures on the significance of the great voyages of the middle ages – a course which proved very successful when delivered about a month later.” (‘The Art of Lecturing’, Arthur M. Lewis, 1873)
“Unless you imagine that Lord Delacour has a peculiar taste for surgical operations, I cannot conceive how his becoming my confidant upon this occasion could have an immediate tendency to increase his affection for me – about which affection I don’t care a straw, as you, better than anyone else, must know; for I am no hypocrite.” (‘Belinda’, Mary Edgeworth, 1824)
In all three cases, ‘which’ is not really being employed as a possessive – the object (feet, conception, affection) has already appeared, and ‘which’ is being employed to mean ‘the aforementioned’. A more modern (though deliberately archaic-sounding) example of this usage appears in ‘The Crying of Lot 49’ by Thomas Pynchon:
“Angelo, then, evil Duke of Squamuglia, has perhaps ten years before the
play’s opening murdered the good Duke of adjoining Faggio, by poisoning
the feet on an image of Saint Narcissus, Bishop of Jerusalem, in the
court chapel, which feet the Duke was in the habit of kissing every
Sunday at Mass.”
Although this might superficially appear to be used as a possessive (“an image (…) which feet the Duke was in the habit of kissing”) I suspect it actually refers back to the first instance of ‘the feet’ – so: “the feet (…) which feet”.
I’m glad even English-as-first-language people are not sure about this. Thanks for answering my question.
Another semicolon kind of person
As a general rule the more impersonal the thing is, the less likely it is to take ‘whose’. For a person, always. For a city or other entity with a name (London, the Queen Mary, Coalhill School etc.) you can generally get away with it, and it’s neater and less wordy than a ‘with’ clause: likewise a company (‘Virgin is the only company whose profits have risen in recent years…’). Unique un-named items (‘My house, whose windows are missing) CAN take whose, but you have to play it by ear. The further you get from uniquenessthe weirder it sounds, until eventually when you’re talking about ‘the car’, ‘the report’ or ‘the ipod’ you would generally avoid it.
Sometimes it’s a judgement call, how familiar and ‘known’ the object is, and how much you need to simplify the sentence. For example, in trying to sort long convoluted sentences while editing, I’ve resorted to ‘whose’ just to sort things out a bit and make it more readable, even though I would usually use a ‘with’ or ‘which’ clause.
To look at Adelaide’s examples, the car ‘whose’ sounds wrong, as does the umbrella, but the aunt’s box reads just fine to me, because it is more personal and unique. The ‘which’ clause is clunky, and ‘containing’ is dull. The first sentence is the sexy one!
Thanks for this post, this settles the debate with a colleague of mine and helps me a lot in writing some English documentation.
French-native Olivier…
By the way, Google translate (I know it is not that trustworthy, hence my search for a more reliable source), chooses the “whose” option when coming from French (https://translate.google.fr/?hl=en&tab=TT#fr/en/Ils%20sont%20situ%C3%A9s%20dans%20des%20fichiers%20dont%20la%20structure%20est%20opaque); however, it correctly translates back to the same French sentence when using the “of which” form and even manages to understand the incorrect “which replacing whose” form…
I’m questioning whether the example in the original post is grammatically correct
“I placed the iPhone, the screen of which was broken, in the bin.”
It seems that the relative clause shouldn’t have been separated with commas since it is a defining relative clause