We lit a fire whose fuel was old timber wood.
Is the word whose referring to fire, an inanimate object, correct in this sentence? Or is there a more appropriate word?
animacygrammaticalitypossessive-of-whichpossessivespronouns
We lit a fire whose fuel was old timber wood.
Is the word whose referring to fire, an inanimate object, correct in this sentence? Or is there a more appropriate word?
Best Answer
The word "whose" is used in several different grammatical ways. For some of these (see my original answer below), it has been grammatical to use it for inanimate objects, at least since the days of Shakespeare. For others (see my update), it is only used for people or animals.
ORIGINAL ANSWER:
Many people seem to believe that you cannot use whose for inanimate objects, but I don't believe this was ever proscribed except by out-of-control grammarians. Consider the following quotes from Shakespeare (selected from many more quotes where whose refers to an inanimate object) and more recent authors:
Hamlet I.v
Two Gentlemen of Verona, III.ii
Timon of Athens IV.iii
Jane Austen also used whose to refer to inanimate objects:
Pride and Prejudice (1813)
Also F. Scott Fitzgerald:
The Great Gatsby (1925)
Not to mention Pat Conroy:
South of Broad (2010)
UPDATE: I just realized that whose is used in several different grammatical ways. In some of these ways, I would never use whose for anything but a person or animal. In particular, one of whose's uses is as an interrogative pronoun, as in:
If you had some leaves, and were asking which tree they fell off of, you cannot say:
You have to say something like
But when it is a relative pronoun that immediately follows its antecedant, whose can be used for inanimate objects:
This may be part of the cause of the confusion about whether whose can only be used for people or animals.