# FR: most of whom



## jonquille

Hello,
I have a question.In this sentence which one is correct "dont" or "que".

Only 120 households most of whom the local ranchers, live there with difficult and onerous situations.
Seulement 120 ménages locaux dont la plupart sont des éleveurs vivent avec des situations difficiles et* intolérable*.

Thank you.


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## Morganlove

The correct one is "dont", as I know, "whom" is always used to mean "dont" and never "que"


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## PhilRami

Definitely "dont", so your sentence is correct, providing you add commas. It will be even nicer to do without "dont". I suggest: "Seulement 120 ménages, la plupart des éleveurs, vivent dans des situations difficiles et pénibles..." In the English sentence, "difficult" and "onerous" seem redundant.


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## jonquille

Thank you so much.It was very useful.


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## Maître Capello

The sub-sentence would be _*La plupart des* 120 ménages locaux sont des éleveurs_, where _des_ is the preposition _de_ contracted with the definite article _les_.

Hence, because you must somehow mention that preposition, you need to use _dont_ which acts as both relative pronoun and preposition in the relative clause. (_Que_ is suitable for direct objects where no preposition is involved.)


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## Giorgio Spizzi

Hullo, jon.

Hope you won't mind my little interventions on your English 

Only 120 households , most of whom (the) local ranchers, live there in difficult and onerous situations.

(The use of _whom_ is perfect for the following _ranchers_ but not so much for the _preceding_ _households_)

GS


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## jann

Giorgio Spizzi said:


> Hope you won't mind my little interventions on your English
> 
> Only 120 households , most of whom (the) local ranchers, live there in difficult and onerous situations.


And in turn I hope you don't mind if I correct yours. 

We cannot use _most of whom local ranchers_ as an appositive without including a verb (_most of whom are local ranchers_), and certainly we must delete the definite article.  Better: _Only 120 households, mostly local ranchers, ..._

To live "with" a difficult situation is perfectly correct, but it has a different meaning than living "in" a difficult situation.  If the desired meaning is "to live in..." then it would be more natural to talk about "difficult conditions" rather than "difficult situations."  Using "situations" in the plural is unlikely in English, regardless.

Once the small grammar issues are corrected, the bigger problem with the English sentence is the word "only."  The meaning is ambiguous.  There are two possibilities: 
(1) Of all the households that live there, only 120 face difficult conditions (and most of these 120 are local ranchers).
(2) There are a mere 120 households that live there, and all of them face difficult conditions.  Most of them are local ranchers.

I suspect the intended meaning is (2).

But none of these issues are really relevant for the original grammar question: certainly we will need _des ménages dont la plupart + verb_.


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## jonquille

Thank you so much.The intended meaning is (2).


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## Giorgio Spizzi

Hullo, Jann.

Thank you for "correcting my corrections".
Needless to say, it came as a complete surprise that "Only 120 households, most of whom local ranchers, live..." is grammaticaly incorrect.
How would you react, say, to "As many as forty pupils — none of them from nearby Brixton — have been invited too the party"?
My impression is that, albeit the "interruptor" has no conjugated verb, the sentence can be considered a passable English sentence. 

All the best.

GS


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## jonquille

Hello,
I'm very confused.Can anybody tell me the correct sentence in English?
Thank you in advance.


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## geostan

It's funny that no one has mentioned it, but I would have said *most of which*, not *most of whom*.


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## jann

jonquille said:


> Hello,
> I'm very confused.Can anybody tell me the correct sentence in English?
> Thank you in advance.


There isn't one, single "correct" sentence in English.  But there are several ways the English sentence could be revised and improved. You told us that the intended meaning was (2) from post #7 above.  So we could say, for example:

The area is inhabited by a mere 120 households, mostly local ranchers, and they endure difficult living conditions.
A mere 120 households, mostly local ranchers, live there (in utter poverty, under constant threat of violence, etc.).
etc.​ 
But there are lots of other options!



geostan said:


> It's funny that no one has mentioned it, but I would have said *most of which*, not *most of whom*.


Well I guess it's that "a household" can't be "a rancher"... which is why _whom_ didn't bother me, because somehow it referred indirectly to the people in the household.  But it's admittedly not much better.  And for that matter, it's doubtful that every member of a given household engages in ranching activities, even if that is how the family supports itself...


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## jonquille

Thank  you so much.I learnt many things from this Thread.


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## Giorgio Spizzi

Hullo, Geo.
Actually, I mentioned my incomplete satisfaction with the relative pronoun in my post #6.

Hullo, Jann, am I to believe that you think my example apposition in post #9 is correct or that I ought to insert a conjugated verb?

Best 

GS


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## jann

Giorgio Spizzi said:


> Thank you for "correcting my corrections".
> Needless to say, it came as a complete surprise that "Only 120 households, most of whom local ranchers, live..." is grammaticaly incorrect.
> How would you react, say, to "As many as forty pupils — none of them from nearby Brixton — have been invited too the party"?





Giorgio Spizzi said:


> Hullo, Jann, am I to believe that you think my example apposition in post #9 is correct or that I ought to insert a conjugated verb?


You do not need to insert a conjugated verb in the "Brighton" sentence from post #9.   But you do need to insert one in the "households" sentence from post #6.

"Them" is the objective case of the subject/object pronoun "they."  It is not a relative pronoun.  The relative pronoun that would be involved here is "who," which acts as the subject of a verb.  The examples below are color-coded as follows: subject group - verb - complement, and [brackets] indicate text that may be omitted from a grammatical standpoint.

"120 households, [who are] all ranchers, live there..." 
"120 households, [who are] most of them ranchers, live there..."
"40 pupils, [who are] none of them from Brighton, have been invited..."

If we want to use "{quantity} of them," it is very awkward indeed to include [who are]!  At that point, we're better off using a different structure.  It includes "whom," which is the objective case of the relative pronoun "who." 

"...120 households, [some/most/all/etc. of whom are] ranchers, live there..."
"...pupils, [none of whom are] from Brighton, have been invited..."

Grammatically speaking, we may omit the [subject verb] from this appositive, too.  But if we did, we would lose information that is important to the meaning!  When we buld an appositive, we cannot omit just the verb... so we must keep the entire unit. 

So we cannot say "120 households, most of whom ranchers, ..."  nor can we say "40 pupils, none of whom from Brighton, ..."  This is different from French, because we can say "_120 ménages, dont la majorité des éleveurs, ..._"or "_40 éleves, dont aucun [ne vient] de Brighton, ..._"But we may certainly say "120 households, most of them ranchers, ..." or "40 pupils, none of them from Brighton, ...".

And in the end, the reason is because "whom" and "them" occupy different grammatical functions in the sentence. 

Of course, if the {quantity} can stand alone unabiguously without including the words "of them" then it can be the subject pronoun, and no relative pronoun is involved.  In this case, it's possible to omit just the verb... but we tend to add another word to clarify the meaning

"40 pupils have been invited.  None/some/many are from Brighton."  
--> "40 pupils, [but/although] none from Brighton, have been invited." 
--> "40 pupils, [including] some/many from Brighton, have been invited." 

120 housholds live there.  Most are ranchers. 
--> "120 housholds, most ranchers, live there."  
--> "120 households, mostly ranchers, live there." 
"Most ranchers" will usually be misunderstood as a subject unit (most ranchers) rather than subject+complement.  To prevent this confusion, we naturally use the 2nd version instead.

Does this make sense?


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## Giorgio Spizzi

Thank you for the detailed and ... crafted explanation, Jann.
I think I'll take my time reading it more than once.
All the best.
GS


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