Plural inanimate objects and whose

Question

is it ok to say "Cars , whose colors are green ?"or "Cars , the color of which are green"

Badgrammar · Accepted Answer

is it ok to write
"cars , whose colors are green"
or
"cars of which the color are green"

Cool Breeze · Answer

Welcome to EF, badgrammar! I hope you'll soon be able to change your screen name to Good Grammar.[Y]

It is correct to use the possessive form whose as a relative pronoun whenever a possessive form is needed:

This house, whose windows are shut, is for sale.
Or: This house, the windows of which are shut, is for sale.

These houses, whose windows are shut, are for sale.
Or: These houses, the windows of which are shut, are for sale.

This man, whose car is parked in the street, wants to sell it.

Using whose to refer to inanimate objects is not at all common in speech. It is mostly used in formal written English. (I'm sorry I couldn't come up with more natural examples of whose.

)

CB

Mister Micawber · Answer

They are very odd statements, hence the grammar also appears odd. Any native would say 'Green cars'.

BillJ · Answer

Hi badgrammar

Strictly, possession with non-human nouns is correctly indicated by of which.

However, whose is so much simpler that it is often acceptable to use it in place of of which. This is a matter of personal judgement, but many of us would feel happier applying it to an animal or something which can be treated personally (a ship or a car, for instance) than to something more solidly inanimate, like a shoe or a kitchen.

So, technically, your second example is the correct one (so far as the pronoun is concerned), but only the most pedantic of people would dispute the first one, so go ahead and use it.

BUT, I'm afraid that you have made a grammatical error: the verb should be singular, not plural.

If you recast it like this, you'll be okay:

'Cars, whose color is green' is correct.

(unless, of course, each car has more than one shade of green, in which case the plural forms (colors/are) would be correct)

Bill J

Plural inanimate objects and whose

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