Yesterday a friend raised an interesting issue about the word whose. She sent me a sentence similar to this one and asked what I thought of it:

Acme is the only local company whose ads are created by a New York agency.

She’d been told whose is appropriate only for sentences about people. If you follow that reasoning, you couldn’t use whose in a sentence about a company – or a dog, a building, or a town.

I wrote back that the sentence was fine and whose can be used in a wide variety of situations. But I want to raise an additional issue today: Who decides these things – and how?

I know people who panic and moan “There are no rules anymore!” any time someone challenges a usage practice they hold dear.

So I want to talk about the process I followed before I answered my friend’s question.

1.  I checked my own experience. I have a doctorate in English and I’ve published with some prestigious organizations. I’m also a member of the editorial board for a scholarly journal.  So my opinion carries some weight. My verdict: The sentence is fine.
2. I went to my bookshelf and looked up whose in my copy of Fowler’s Modern English Usage, a widely respected reference book. Fowler’s comment: The prohibition against using whose with non-human antecedents is a “folk belief.”
3. Just for good measure, I looked up whose in the Oxford English Dictionary, which traces how  words have changed over the centuries and provides examples. The OED, as it’s affectionately called, is now available as a searchable database through many libraries. So instead of having to make a trip to the library, I looked up whose on my home computer. And I learned that both Shakespeare and Milton used whose in sentences with non-human antecedents:
   
   Shakespeare Hamlet i. v. 15,   I would a tale unfold, whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul.
   Milton L’Allegro in Poems 33   Mountains on whose barren brest The labouring clouds do often rest.

My conclusion: The sentence is fine.

Acme is the only local company whose ads are created by a New York agency.  CORRECT

Richard Burton in Hamlet