I'm re-re-re-writing my synopsis and have come up against a grammar question. Can anyone help, please? The opening goes:

'Let's face it, fifty-something women are well past their sell-by date. Not only on the shelf, but shoved to the very back of it.'
So says CLARA, overworked director at ProDoCo, an ailing television station whose only hope of survival is to 'dumb down'

'whose' is wrong, isn't it? But how on earth do I attribute to the tv station?!?
Many thanks,
Susiex

I don't think 'whose' is wrong.

I wasn't sure. Doesn't 'whose' imply that the station is a person?
Susiex

'whose' is the possessive relative pronoun for things as well as people.

Bless you, linguistic Luisa!
Susiex

You're welcome!

(And that's phatic communication - noooo, can't stop now...!)

LL
x

Aaargh (I repeat) - grammar!
Susiex

It's controversial but Luisa's right - there are plenty of precedents for using 'whose' with inanimate objects. It can seem uncomfortable though, so you could try something like:

So says CLARA, overworked director at ProDoCo, an ailing television station with 'dumbing down' its only hope of survival.

or

So says CLARA, overworked director at ProDoCo, an ailing television station, 'dumbing down' its only hope of survival.

Chris

Thanks, Chris - good suggestions. I think whatever I do will sound slightly awkward. I can't tell you how many times I've rewritten and rejigged this synopsis! Half of Women's Fiction have helped me, and Synopsis and Outline group, and my writing friends! The trouble is that some agents seem to want the whole shebang - an outline-type synopsis, with the end spelt out - and others ask for a very short, even 'blurby' synopsis - indeed, one agent asks that we DON'T spell out the ending! (I repeat - arrgghh!!!)
Susiex