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Date: | Mon, 5 Jan 2015 09:50:55 -0800 |
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This problem has nothing directly to do with who/whom (a distinction that the SAT does not test).
You can’t just look at the single word following “by.” The object of the preposition is “them/those who did not approve it,” and the required word has to do with how it functions in this unit, which is a noun phrase headed by them/those.
The relative clause “who did not approve it” modifies them/those. But “them,” as a personal pronoun, virtually always stands alone in the noun phrase. It doesn’t take modifiers like the relative clause. I won’t get into a detailed analysis of “those," as modern accounts differ from a traditional analysis and the differences aren’t to the point here. Suffice it to say that “those” isn’t a personal pronoun and doesn’t have the same restriction.
> On Jan 5, 2015, at 9:34 AM, Jane Saral <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> A recent SAT "ID the error" question reads:
>
> Although it is widely regarded as a masterpiece now, when it was built
> A B
>
> the Eiffel Tower was compared to a "ridiculous smokestack" by them who did
> C
>
> not approve of it. No error
> D E
>
>
> C just sounds wrong. I would say "by those who did not approve of it." But isn't the "them/those" word the stand-alone O.P. of by, unaffected by the relative clause that follows? This does not seem to be dealing with the who/whom question; "who" is correctly the subject of "did not approve."
>
> So why is this an error?
>
> Jane Saral
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