Out of nostalgia, I was rereading Harry Potter and the goblet of fire, this time in the original English, and I came across the following sentence (beginning of chapter 2, end of page 26 in my copy)
[…] Dudley was a very gifted boy whose teachers didn’t understand him.
If I were to write this sentence, I'd write
[…] Dudley was a very gifted boy whose teachers didn’t understand.
My reasoning is that "Dudley" is already acting as the object of the subordinate clause where the teachers don't understand. Why is the sentence as I wrote it incorrect?
As another example, which of these two sentences is correct?
Dudley, whose shirt was red, was a boy.
or
Dudley, whose his shirt was red, was a boy.
I'd say the first one, but the above example seems to contradict me!
Best Answer
Your proposed sentence is not good because it doesn't provide an object for the verb 'understand'. Consider that you could say "Dudley was a very gifted boy whose teachers didn't understand mathematics." That would be grammatical and meaningful. But it is Dudley they didn't understand, so 'him' is necessary to establish the meaning. Your second pair of sentences isn't analogous to the first.