Michael is looking for a roommate who has a great sense of responsibility.

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1
  1. He gave the store owner a flyer for his car advertisement to help him to promote it and look for buyer. The store owner told him that so far nobody has made any enquiry regarding it.
  2. Michael is looking for a roommate who has a great sense of responsibility.
  3. I’ve place an advertisnent on the website to sell my book but so far I have not receive any enquiry with regards to that.

Are the above sentences constructed correctly? Please help. Thanks.

2
  1. He gave the store owner a flyer for his car advertisement to help him to promote it and look for buyer. <-- I can’t work out what the flyer is for and who owns gthe flyer, or who is trying to sell what.
    The store owner told him that so far nobody had made any enquiries regarding it.
  2. Michael is looking for a room-mate who has a great sense of responsibility.
  3. I’ve placed an advertisement on the website so that I can sell my book but so far I have not received any enquiries regarding that.
3

Thanks for replying. :slight_smile:

He gave the store owner a flyer for his car advertisement to help him to promote it and look for buyer. <-- I can’t work out what the flyer is for and who owns gthe flyer, or who is trying to sell what.

I have rephrased the above sentence in the following way.

He gave a flyer/leaflet for car advertisement to the shopkeeper to help the seller to promote the car and look for buyer.

4

‘Thanks for replying’ or ‘Thanks for the reply’

It still confuses me - who is the ‘he’ and why does he have a flyer that he can give to the owner?

5

Thanks for the reply :).

‘He’ is the seller of the car of whom has created flyer/leaflet to give them out to shop owner or perhaps anyone who owns a shop to help him find buyer.
‘Shop owner’ is the shop owner that do business with customers. He might be able to help the seller to find a prospective buyer by promoting the car to the customer they he or she meets. Example: Say I own a grocery store and my sister wants to sell her car, so she would give me the flyer to show customer that I meet.

:slight_smile:

6

***** NOT A TEACHER *****

Hello, Beeesneees:

Of course, you know this. But may I gently remind other members that in American English, there is no hyphen in “roommate”? The hyphen disappeared many years ago in American English. That hyphen is very jarring to Americans.

Hello, St8762:

I thought that you would like to know about what SOME people think:

Of course, “who” is correct in your sentence.

But some people say:

a. If you use “who,” the sentence could be interpreted as referring to a specific person whom Mike already knows.

b. In your sentence, Mike is simply looking for a KIND / TYPE of roommate. So some people actually think that using “that” instead of “who” would be better.

James

7

I would not use ‘that’ in the sentence about the room-mate. Using ‘who’ has absolutely no indication of as specific person already known to Mike. A person is not a ‘that’, under any circumstances.

8

It seems a daft arrangement, but grammatically:
He gave the store owner a flyer advertising his car so that the store owner could help him look for a buyer. The store owner told him that so far nobody had made any enquiries regarding it.

9

[/quote]
James

***** NOT A TEACHER *****

Of course, “who” is correct in your sentence.

But some people say:

a. If you use “who,” the sentence could be interpreted as referring to a specific person whom Mike already knows.

b. In your sentence, Mike is simply looking for a KIND / TYPE of roommate. So some people actually think that using “that” instead of “who” would be better.

James
[/quote]

Hello, Mr James M!

We (as non-native speakers of English) are taught that both [i]who[/i] and [i]that[/i] are used for people but there is stylistical difference, i.e, [i]who[/i] is more formal than [i]that[/i]
    
  IMHO,
  (a) Michael is looking for a roommate [b]who[/b] has a great sense of responsibility. (usual/natural and more formal)
  (b) Michael is looking for a roommate [b]that[/b] has a great sense of responsibility. (more informal/colloquial)  Am I right?
10

***** NOT A TEACHER *****

Hello, Foreigner:

I was shocked this morning when I read this comment from Beeesneees:

“a person is not a ‘that’, under any circumstances.”

I then realized that as a moderator, Beeesneees has the responsibility to teach the most modern form of English to students.

So you would be very wise to take her advice and use “who” to refer to persons.

BUT:

  1. All of my (American) handbooks on “good” English assure me that “that” can be used to refer to people.
  2. Here are a few comments from one of my favorite books:

a. “That” is the oldest of the relative pronouns.
b. The relative “that” now refers to persons, animals, or things.
c. The relative “that,” being older, is likely to have a more familiar and traditional ring [sound], and “who” … replacing “that” often sounds more formal. [The authors seem to agree with you. Congratulations!]
d. “That” seems to retain some of its Old English demonstrative meaning [when you point to something with your finger]:

THIS is the man that I voted for.
e. In restrictive clauses after superlatives and exclusive adjectives, “that” is preferred: Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. [Everyone who is thirsty, come to the waters]

My summary:

  1. Students should take the moderator’s excellent advice to use “who” for persons.
  2. When you become fluent in English, then you have the right to use your own style.
  3. Some authorities feel that “that” is still “correct” in sentences such as these:

a. The MOST impartial critic that could be found. [after a superlative]
b. The ONLY man that I know of.
c. ANY one that knows anything knows that.
d. IT was you that said so.

[Those sentences come from two English brothers who wrote a famous book in the year 1906 (1906!). They admitted that even in 1906, " ‘That’, used of persons, has come to look archaic [old English that is seldom used]."

As for me, I shall continue to use “that” in such sentences, for it just sounds better to me. Sometimes native speakers choose a particular word for euphony (the pleasant sound in a particular sentence).

James

House and Harman, DESCRIPTIVE ENGLISH GRAMMAR (1950), pages 62 -63.
The Fowler brothers, THE KING’S ENGLISH (1906), pages 91 -92.