The man the door of whose house was smashed is here.
My cousin, the door of whose house was smashed, is here.
Are the above sentences grammatical?
Printable View
The man the door of whose house was smashed is here.
My cousin, the door of whose house was smashed, is here.
Are the above sentences grammatical?
Quote:
Originally Posted by azz
How about:
The man, whose door to the house was smashed, is here.
My cousin, whose door to the house was smashed, is here.
You can also replace "door to the house" with "house door" where house acts as an adjective for the word "door".
The man whose house door was smashed is here.
Hi Marylin,
I think "house door" will work, but what if I replace "door" by "window"?
I don't think "door to the house" works here. It sounds as if the door was his and the house wasn't.
Your key to the front door is broken but I have mine.
The key is yours, but not necessarily the front door. We might be talking about the office building in which we work.
And again, if I replace "door" with window, we'll have the same problem.
One solution could be "whose house's door".
OK then, definitely not house's door as it sounds really bad to me...almost like the house is alive or something.Quote:
Originally Posted by azz
The way I would put it then is: The man, whose house door is smashed, is here.
House window works for me...as opposed to...a barn window, car window, etc.
I agree with you, though, that by saying "door to the house", the possessive aspect of that particular sentence shifts the importance of ownership from the house to the door itself. I never thought about it that way.