I was taking a look at adorable, hippie, webcomics shirts, and came across the following phrase:
(1) (*)It's even made by American Apparel, who believes in fair labor practices.
Now -- leaving aside the thorny issue of whether or not American Apparel is an ethical company -- to me, this is an ill-formed sentence. (Hence, the asterisk.) I much prefer one of these:
(2) It's even made by American Apparel, who believe in fair labor practices.
(3) It's even made by American Apparel, which believes in fair labor practices.
I think this is because I require "who" to refer to people. One can treat a corporation, such as American Apparel, as a group of people, in which case "who" is appropriate but, crucially, plural. (viz. sentence 2.) One can also talk about a corporation as an inanimate entity, in which case I don't permit "who" to be used.
What do you think? Native English speakers, is sentence 1 grammatical for you?
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1 comment:
You never know ...perhap some poor child was named "American", to some parents that were John and Mary Apparel. (In which case being named, say Apple, by comparison, isn't so bad)
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