BREAKING: Target Test Prep releases Brand New 2026 On Demand GMAT prep course

Redeem

wall street journal

This topic has expert replies
Post new topic Locked
Previous Topic Next Topic
Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts
Posts: 21
Joined: Sat Jan 02, 2010 12:37 am

wall street journal

by aerodan1 » Sat Mar 13, 2010 5:43 pm
Taken from an editorial from the Tuesday, March 9, 2010 Wall Street Journal.

"Unions usually worry less about European-style chronic unemployment than merely protecting whoever has union jobs now."

There are two issues that confuse me in this sentence. The first is parallelism: unemployment is being compared to "protecting". Is protecting being used as a gerund in this sentence? I am not sure if there is a "gerund test" that we can apply. Also, is whoever supposed to be whomever? Thanks - Dan.
Top
Source: — Sentence Correction |
User avatar
Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts
Posts: 142
Joined: Sat Feb 20, 2010 7:23 pm
Thanked: 8 times
Followed by:1 members

by bpgen » Sat Mar 13, 2010 7:23 pm
Well, Interesting question!

You are right, 'protecting' is used as Gerund and it's comparing both nouns 'chronic unemployment' and 'protecting jobs'.

Now if you look out the clause(declarative sentence) 'whoever has union jobs now' , you could see that pronoun is used as 'subjective' form(for verb 'has'), not as the 'objective' one.

Therefore 'whoever' is used correctly for declarative sentence with subjective pronoun.

Hope this help.
"Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in."
Top
Post new topic Locked
• Page 1 of 1