Re: WFB goes for the sound

Ron Hardin wrote:
>
> Wm F Buckley
>
> It is instructive that the reporters at the press conference ? a full
> house ? pressed Mr. Bush hardly at all on energy policy. That reflects
> in part the sense of futility in pursuing a policy question the only
> effective answer to which is excluded by rudimentary political
> considerations.
>
> Presumably he's avoiding ``question whose only effective answer''
> because ``whose'' seems to him to be the genitive of ``who.''

Prescriptivists believe that "whose" can only be used of animates, or
even humans.

> But ``question to which the only effective answer'' would have been
> fine, or even, bravely, ``question which the only effective answer
> to.''

Buckley has been writing like a snobbish *** for half a century.
He's certainly not going to start writing well at his age.

> Maybe it's the sound of the inversion that he likes, like a moth
> circling a light.

He also doesn't have the slightest grasp on the facts in this case,
either.

He doesn't seem to know that if a reporter challenges this president,
said reporter never gets to ask this president a question again.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@xxxxxxx
.