The plaintiffs (who are respondents) contend that they have stated a claim for relief under §2333(d)(2). They were allegedly injured by a terrorist attack carried out by ISIS. But plaintiffs are not suing ISIS. Instead, they have brought suit against three of the largest social-media companies in the world—Facebook, Twitter (who is petitioner), and Google (which owns YouTube)—for allegedly aiding and abetting ISIS.
You'd think the proximity of "Twitter (who...)" to "Google (which...)" would set off somebody's grammar alarm. They're both corporations and — though it's sometimes said jocosely or not that "corporations are people" — they're not human beings and they don't get "who."
It's an outright error, but I'm interested in why something worked on by so many industrious writers and editors would fail to catch it. I came up with 2 ideas:
1. The previous sentence begins "The plaintiffs (who are respondents)...." These parties are human beings, so "who" is the correct word. Then you might imagine, when you get to the next sentence, that "Twitter (who is petitioner)" looks nicely parallel. They're the parties to the case before the Court — the petitioner and the respondents — so you might be lulled into feeling good about seeing "who" in both parentheticals. But then what about "Google (which...)"? You'd think that would tip you off. Did they notice and think but Google is not a petitioner? That would be odd!
2. Maybe Twitter — unlike Google — really does feel like a person. It's entirely owned by Elon Musk, so you might think "Twitter" is just another name for the human being known as Elon Musk, thus making "who" the correct word.
It's still an error, of course!
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38 comments:
Perhaps the difference is Twitter as petitioner is an actor in the case, and therefore gets the person treatment, whereas Google is not a party to this motion and therefore is just a company that gets name-checked.
The other explanation is the large number of rulings issued the same day. With unusually large number still to be issued this term we should expect more grammar errors.
Corporate personhood or juridical personality is the legal notion that a juridical person such as a corporation, separately from its associated human beings (like owners, managers, or employees), has at least some of the legal rights and responsibilities enjoyed by natural persons.[1] In most countries, a corporation has the same rights as a natural person to hold property, enter into contracts, and to sue or be sued.
Since this involves a lawsuit by Twitter it’s entirely acceptable to use “who” as its pronoun.
Could they simply be using who and which interchangeably, with casual indifference
Whom cares?
Could they simply be using who and which interchangeably, with casual indifference
Saw Casual Indifference open for the Stooges in 1980.
British English treats singular nouns for groups as plural, owing to the number of people it refers to. If you're thinking of people, a who is allowed as well.
It would in any case be a usage question, not a grammar question.
At least it's not "whom is a Petitioner." Gah.
Google had no human being representing the case to the court, Twitter did- their legal team.
Sure, it is a grammar error, but I think it probably is an intentional one, not accidental. One might be able to look at other opinions in which individuals were suing a corporation, and see which pronoun is selected for each party to the suit.
Or, perhaps, Twitter and Google have declared their pronouns.
Agree with what Smilin' Jack said. I don't see a gramnatical error.
They obviously aren't starving and beating the clerks enough.
As sometimes happens with multiple editors, it could be that they originally only had the "who" parentheticals identifying the active parties with the parallelism that you noted. A later editor added the "which" parenthetical after Google to clarify its relationship to YouTube without looking at the paragraph's context and missed the opportunity to fix the earlier error.
Will Cate said...
"Could they simply be using who and which interchangeably, with casual indifference"
But whom would do such a thing?
@Will Cate: Could they simply be using who and which interchangeably, with cruel neutrality.
FIFY.
ISIS is a CIA front, there would be some interesting discovery. ISIS provided us with the pretext to put troops in Syria. Why did we really want troops in Syria? Is it a "special military operation" into a sovereign country, that would be Syria, in order to protect the rights of a minority, the Kurds?
Where have we heard that argument before?
Incidentally, we are stealing Syria's oil and grain, and guarding the rigs with American boys.
Twitter identifies as a person. Don't be twitphobic.
Maybe they had several drafts, each with a unique grammatical error, in an attempt to catch the leaker. :)
"British English treats singular nouns for groups as plural, owing to the number of people it refers to. If you're thinking of people, a who is allowed as well."
Doesn't explain treating Twitter and Google differently.
Grammatical errors seem to be everywhere. I'm traveling today on Southwest. At each of its gates are video signs asking passengers in groups B and C to "check you're roller bags" due to limited space. Just pathetic, and a sad commentary on the state of basic English language education.
The obvious explanation is that Justice Thomas is woke: “who” is Twitter’s preferred pronoun and “which” is Google’s preferred pronoun.
Or maybe he is discriminating against LLCs: “Although Twitter, Inc., is the named petitioner and defendant, Twitter, Inc., has since been merged into X Corp., a subsidiary of X Holdings Corp. Similarly, although Facebook, Inc., and Google, Inc., are the named defendants, Facebook, Inc., is now known as Meta Platforms, Inc., and Google, Inc., is now Google LLC, a subsidiary of Alphabet, Inc.”
I would have said....."Ya' all!"
Twitter = Elon
Elon is a Who
Therefore, Twitter is a Who.
Apologies to Theodor Geisel.
Third reason: an attempt to avoid any ambiguity by overgrammatizationalizing the sentence.
How about omitting the parentheses and the phrases "who are" and "who is", and using perfectly comprehensible commas with "respondent" and "plaintiff" here?
Since this involves a lawsuit by Twitter it’s entirely acceptable to use “who” as its pronoun.
Ann argues style book but it does seem to suggest the specific legal meanings of the entities could justify the usage. A petitioner is a person. Twitter is not a person but Who is petitioner? Twitter.
Google, neither person neither nor petitioner, gets the thing treatment, which means which...
I'll have another drink now...
To adapt a common caveat: Never attribute to intention what may be explained by oversight or sloppiness.
I'll suggest that they (they = whoever gets the document going) do not draft opinions from scratch; that would be re-inventing the wheel. Rather, they likely access a similar-issue past opinion, strip it of extraneous material, keep the formatting, headings, etc., as found relevant, do global find/replace for topical words, and insert text as it's separately composed & provided.
...and someone missed a "who." (And Horton didn't hear it!)
Does one be a corporation and one a sole proprietorship have anything to do with it?
Google follows the progressive paradigm of diversity in blocs or classes. While Twitter follows the conservative model of diversity of individuals, minority of one.
"Who" is wrong. It is always wrong in such cases. "Who" is for people. "Which' is for non-people. Those who do not see it as a grammatical error are amongst those who commit the error. It's part and parcel with the whole gender/sex confusion. Words have gender; people have sex.
Who's on first?
answer: twitter with single owner personified Musk
This distinction is no longer taught, and was not always taught. See ..Which art in heaven..vs ..Who art in heaven..Both have been considered correct in the past.
Prince Hal said...
"Grammatical errors seem to be everywhere. I'm traveling today on Southwest. At each of its gates are video signs asking passengers in groups B and C to "check you're roller bags" due to limited space. Just pathetic, and a sad commentary on the state of basic English language education."
I agree. They should of done better.
Pretty soon the court will need to decide if it's gonna use the preferred pronouns of one of the parties involved, or stick to traditional language.
Can the court be sued for refusing to call some demented woman "they"?
No reason to use pronouns here at all. Could have been "Twitter (the petitioner here) and Google (owner of YouTube)".
It's an outright error, but I'm interested in why something worked on by so many industrious writers and editors would fail to catch it.
In my experience, the usual explanation for an error like this one getting through is that it was inserted late in the editorial process, thus evading all of the industrious writers and editors who labored earlier.
Also in my experience, pointing out other people’s poor use of language has a karmic effect
so the big fuss is that: Plagiarist have been allowed to claim 'protection of law' under 1A?
show how messed up USA legal system ???!!!!
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