What is an electric toothbrush?
"An electric toothbrush is a toothbrush that's bristles run on electric power."
Is this ungrammatical English.
|
|
Is that sentence ungrammatical English?
|
Yes.
An electric toothbrush is a toothbrush whose bristles run on electric power
'whose' is the possessive relative pronoun. Not that's, who's, or which's
|
<<An electric toothbrush is a toothbrush whose bristles run on electric power.>>
A toothbrush is not a person, hence we shouldn't use "whose" there unless for some reason you're personifying the toothbrush.
|
Using "whose" there actually sounds silly to me, as if the toothbrush is a person. "which's" actually makes more sense.
"An electric toothbrush is a toothbrush which's bristles run on electric power."
|
|
No, "whose" can be used for either people or things. "Who" can't, but "whose" can.
|
There is absolutely nothing wrong with using 'whose' for things
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
definition 2 Used to show the relation between a person or thing and something that belongs to that person or thing.
The examples it gives are
That's the man whose house has burned down.
A new laptop computer whose low cost will make it attractive to students.
|