Grammar 101: Whose and Who's
It's been a while since I did one of my Grammar 101 posts and there's only a few to go before I publish them as a book on Amazon's KDP platform. So here's #15.
Grammar 101: Whose and Who's
Previously:
Its and It's...
i.e. and e.g....
Lie and Lay...
Youse, Yous, Alot and Lot's...
The Difference Between a Weasel and a Stoat...
A Few Simple Rules Are All You Need
There's no doubt that, in its entirety, English grammar is complex, especially for someone learning English as a second language.
But...If you're a native English speaker and just want to avoid common grammatical errors in your writing (such as blog posts on your website) there are only a handful of rules that you need to memorize.
So this series of posts is for those who'd like to ditch the Grammarly crutch and just know what's right and what's not.
Whose and Who's
This is another really simple one that so many get wrong.
All you have to remember is that the apostrophe indicates a missing letter, in this case "i".
So "who's" is an abbreviation of "who is".
But "whose" is a relative pronoun.
A couple of examples should make the difference clear.
"Whose business is this?" is correct, as it's asking whom does this business belong to. Both "whom" and "whose" are relative pronouns, standing in for the unknown person or persons who (another relative pronoun) who own the business.
"Who's business is this?" is incorrect, as it's saying "Who is business is this?" which you can see, when it's expanded like that, doesn't make any sense.
Another example:
"Who's out there? Show yourself now." is correct as it's asking who is out there.
"Whose out there?" simply makes no sense at all.
Again, the trick is to substitute "who is" for "who's" and ask if it still makes sense.
Recent Comments
70
English is second language for me too. But, many times, we use English very carefully because, understanding of the sentences will be changed to others than me. So, I write sentence and read again and again, does it make sense and understand.
Anyway, that good explanation and I suggest, if you can publish post like this way, it will more helpful for people who's second language is English (use of who's, is it correct?)
Thanks
SAM
You're welcome, Sam. I have a lot of sympathy for people trying to work in a foreign language.
And, sorry but no. it should be "people whose second language is English". Substitute "who is" for "who's" and you'll see.
I actually find them to be very useful, which is why I'm taking the time to read your blogs and saying thanks.
So I want you to keep posting as it will help out a lot of future affiliates that has signed up.
Happy Blogging!
Myra
COOL Phil. :D I don't know if I will give up Grammarly (it is helping a lot-Punctuation), But I do think I will have to get that book. :D
Commas, Colons, Semi-colons, Apostrophe-S, S-Apostrophe, Actually pretty much all of it to be safe. I was the idiot child in school that paid very little attention and passed with Cs and Ds.
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Hi there! As soon as I saw the title to the series, I thought about “your” and “you’re.” I am not sure why people don’t get it. Learned it in elementary school. I am so glad that you have already addressed it.
Thanks very much for this.
Hazel
You're welcome, Hazel. I guess they were just not paying attention in elementary school lol.
Yup! Probably napping or something! lol