16Hit1600
Standard English ConventionsVery hardRelative pronoun case and choice with an intervening clause

Standard English Conventions practice question

The city commission awarded the cathedral restoration contract to Yusuf Hakim, ____ the review board was convinced could complete the delicate stonework before the winter freeze.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

  1. A. which
  2. B. whom
  3. C. whoCorrect
  4. D. that

Answer: C. who

The relative pronoun is the subject of the verb 'could complete' ('___ could complete the delicate stonework'); the words 'the review board was convinced' form an inserted clause that does not govern the pronoun. A subject requires the subjective case, 'who.' (B) 'whom' encodes the very common error of assuming that a pronoun immediately followed by a noun-plus-verb sequence must be an object—here, wrongly treating it as the object of 'was convinced.' (A) 'which' is used for things, not for a person such as Yusuf Hakim. (D) 'that' cannot introduce a nonrestrictive clause set off by a comma; it is limited to restrictive clauses, which take no comma.

Why the other answers are wrong

A. which
"Which" refers to things, not people; Yusuf Hakim is a person, so you need "who."
B. whom
You read the pronoun as the object of "was convinced," but "the review board was convinced" is an inserted clause — the pronoun is the subject of "could complete," so it takes the subjective case "who."
D. that
"That" can't introduce a nonrestrictive clause set off by a comma; it works only in restrictive clauses, which take no comma.

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