relative pronouns

LESSON 2
QUESTA LEZIONE E PER I STUDENTI DEL CORSO DI RECUPERO DI INGLESE DEL INSTITUTO STRAFFA.
"Queste Lezioni si svolgeranno ogni settimana per tutta l'estate. Gli studenti sono invitati a partecipare indicando gli argomenti da affrontare.
RELATIVE PRONOUNS
What does this mean ? It means purely another name for something= a name relative to the name we are talking about.
MARY, who likes biscuits,eats too many.
WHO is the second name that refers to Mary
PAUL,who has no hair, wishes he had.
who refers to paul.

The relative pronouns in English are which, that, who, whom, and whose. Who and whom refer only to people. Which refers to things, qualities, and ideas--never to people. That and whose refer to people, things, qualities, and ideas.

WHO=is used generally for People
Adriana,WHO is from Latin America, loves the tango
WHO refers to Adriana

WHICH=is used for Things
Biscuits, which are made in Italy, are nice
Which is the name that refers to Biscuits

Which is also used of small children=Babies,which do not sleep,should be given beer (LOL)

THAT=is used for people and things,

WHOM. Its not used very much today.
For instance "TO WHOM AM I TALKING TO"
Its beginning to sound too formal, its beginning to sound artificial and stilted
so you will hear "TO WHO AM I TALKING TO"
but as a relative pronoun WHO should not be allowed to replace WHOM=
THE BAKER WHOM THE BANKER WANTED TO MARRY SAID HE WAS ALREADY MARRIED
not WHO the banker wanted to marry
whom is the name that refers to the the Baker.

When WHOM has a related preposition following it sounds not so good today
HE TOLD HIM TO WHOM TO APPLY FOR A MEMBERS CARD=
Who is better here.
You cannot use WHO when the governing preposition comes directly in front of WHOM, in that case you cannot use WHO
= FOR WHO ARE YOU GOING TO VOTE xxxxxx wrong
FOR WHOM ARE YOU GOING TO VOTE =right
but everyone (in England)says =for who are you going to vote for although in a test use whom
REASON= English evolves and the mistakes become in the end grammar. (English grammar evolves as the people use it.)

but there are exceptions ,Who is also used of non human things provided they are being personalised or in some way regarded as having human qualities

I met an Alien called Paul who said "I come from a planet far away".(sesto San Giovanni)

I bought a dog called Ken who came from a dogs home

!Italy ,who are still losing to Lower Chad ,have just scored"
of course a country should not take WHO if we consider it purely as a geographical location. If we do it does not have a relative pronoun

In regional English WHO is often left out
"Theres no man in the world works as hard as Paul" Who should come before works but as said is left out a lot in regional English in Northern England.
If we have two WHO we sometimes leave one out=
"Who was it that discovered oxygen,did you say"?AS a relative pronoun WHOM should be used as the object form but not if it sounds very false or stilted, if preceded by a governing preposition then WHOM must always be used.

RECOMMENDATION
Its acceptable in all but the most formal English to say or write WHO as the object when asking a question
QUESTA LEZIONE E PER I STUDENTI DEL CORSO DI RECUPERO DI INGLESE DEL INSTITUTO STRAFFA.