Use of "who" referring to inanimate objects.
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Use of "who" referring to inanimate objects.
Have you heard this? I've heard some people use "who" when referring to an inanimate object. It sounds odd to me. I'm at a fast food place and say what I'd like and they don't hear it and they respond "you'd like a who?". This has happened to me at times at restaurants and it sounds odd to me.
Re: Use of "who" referring to inanimate objects.
I feel like this would sound right if said in a thick country / southern-belle style accent, and I think I've heard it when going on roadtrips through very rural areas. It definitely sounds strange to me though.
Surely it is as ridiculous to consider sqrt(-1) "imaginary" because you can't use it to count pieces of chalk as to consider the number 200 imaginary because by itself it cannot express the location of one point with reference to another. -Isaac Asimov
Re: Use of "who" referring to inanimate objects.
In dutch I often do this to express disbelief/confusion or rhetorical questions, but never as a serious substitute for "what".
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Re: Use of "who" referring to inanimate objects.
Yeah, at least in the US south and midwest, it's a coy-to-cloying habit that's not really meant seriously, I think gradually going out of fashion. My grandmother will refer to an object among an assortment as "that little guy" and then call it "he" from there, etc.
So much depends upon a red wheel barrow (>= XXII) but it is not going to be installed.
she / her / her
she / her / her
Re: Use of "who" referring to inanimate objects.
I've never come across it in the UK, but on a tangential note I like to respond to people who misspell "queue" as "que" by replacing it with "what", e.g.
"I was standing in the que".
"You were standing in the what?"
Petty and childish, I know, but it makes me chuckle every time.
"I was standing in the que".
"You were standing in the what?"
Petty and childish, I know, but it makes me chuckle every time.

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Re: Use of "who" referring to inanimate objects.
CharlieP wrote:I've never come across it in the UK, but on a tangential note I like to respond to people who misspell "queue" as "que" by replacing it with "what", e.g.
"I was standing in the que".
"You were standing in the what?"
Petty and childish, I know, but it makes me chuckle every time.
Hahaha that's genius!
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Re: Use of "who" referring to inanimate objects.
(Back to OP:) Better than the opposite, anyway.
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Re: Use of "who" referring to inanimate objects.
As foreigner I have a question: Would using "whose" referring to inanimate objects be problematic in the same vein?
Re: Use of "who" referring to inanimate objects.
Problematic in that it's not using the word as it is intended... "Whose" refers to something that belongs to someone. The answer would often involve "hers" or "his".
"Whose cookie is this?"
"It's mine/it's his/it's Zohar's/I don't know whose cookie it is"
"Whose cookie is this?"
"It's mine/it's his/it's Zohar's/I don't know whose cookie it is"
Mighty Jalapeno: "See, Zohar agrees, and he's nice to people."
SecondTalon: "Still better looking than Jesus."
Not how I say my name
SecondTalon: "Still better looking than Jesus."
Not how I say my name
Re: Use of "who" referring to inanimate objects.
Zohar wrote:Problematic in that it's not using the word as it is intended... "Whose" refers to something that belongs to someone.
Why can't things can 'belong' to inanimate objects? "Whose lid/screw/remote is this"
He/Him/His 
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Re: Use of "who" referring to inanimate objects.
It's ungrammatical for questions, but works for relative clauses.
"Whose leaves are these?" suggests that a person owns the leaves, but "This is the tree whose leaves look like hands," is generally considered fine (if a bit strange-sounding).
"Whose leaves are these?" suggests that a person owns the leaves, but "This is the tree whose leaves look like hands," is generally considered fine (if a bit strange-sounding).
Re: Use of "who" referring to inanimate objects.
HES wrote:Zohar wrote:Problematic in that it's not using the word as it is intended... "Whose" refers to something that belongs to someone.
Why can't things can 'belong' to inanimate objects? "Whose lid/screw/remote is this"
There's a sad joke about corporate personhood here.
Mighty Jalapeno: "See, Zohar agrees, and he's nice to people."
SecondTalon: "Still better looking than Jesus."
Not how I say my name
SecondTalon: "Still better looking than Jesus."
Not how I say my name
Re: Use of "who" referring to inanimate objects.
Zohar wrote:There's a sad joke about corporate personhood here.
I don't want to start a political discussion here, but you know that corporate personhood just means that corporations can act as legal entities, right? And they inherit some of the rights of natural persons because they are made up of people. And corporate personhood exists in almost every country.
Re: Use of "who" referring to inanimate objects.
I don't know enough about the topic to talk about it very confidently. Those rights may or may not have their place, but they certainly can (and sometimes do) expand into unwarranted and unwanted territory.
Mighty Jalapeno: "See, Zohar agrees, and he's nice to people."
SecondTalon: "Still better looking than Jesus."
Not how I say my name
SecondTalon: "Still better looking than Jesus."
Not how I say my name
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