Editing a Club Notice While Two Students Defend 'Whom' and 'Less'
The Quiz Club secretary has drafted a notice for the Inter-House Quiz on 14 August:
'All the students whom are interested in the Inter-House Quiz are informed that the programme will be conducted on 14th August. Participants should bring their own pen, paper and calculator's. The quiz will be started at 9 a.m. and the winners will be given a prize by the Principal. Interested students are requested to give their names to the undersigned on or before 12th August.'
Mr. Sekar must correct it with his Class XI editors before it is pinned up. Two students push back: Anita argues that 'whom is also correct because it is the formal choice', and Karthik says 'less than twenty students is fine - fewer sounds old-fashioned.' Mr. Sekar has 30 minutes, one sheet of paper left in the printer, and a grammar syllabus that examinable covers relative pronouns, active and passive voice, and determiners.
1. Produce the corrected notice and identify which corrections are exam-critical and which are matters of style.
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Exam-critical (grammar the paper tests):
- whom are interested → who are interested. The pronoun is the subject of 'are'; case follows function, not formality.
- calculator's → calculators. Plural, not possessive.
- will be started → will begin. With no agent, the future passive leaves the reader asking 'started by whom?' and it is unnecessary for a scheduled event.
Style, worth teaching but not penalised in the same way:
- All the students → All students (notice register).
- the winners will be given a prize by the Principal → the Principal will give away the prizes (active, idiomatic, and prizes are usually plural).
- Dates need the month spelled consistently and a year if the notice is filed: 12 August 20XX.
Corrected notice: 'All students interested in the Inter-House Quiz are informed that the quiz will be held on 14 August 20XX. Participants should bring their own pen, paper and calculators. The quiz will begin at 9 a.m., and the Principal will give away the prizes. Interested students should give their names to the undersigned on or before 12 August 20XX.'
One printed copy, then hand-write the fair copy - the printer constraint is real.
2. How should Mr. Sekar answer Anita on 'whom' and Karthik on 'less'?
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Anita. Formality does not decide case; function does. Run the substitution test on the board: '___ are interested' - try he / him. 'He is interested' is correct, so the pronoun is a subject, so who. 'Whom' is for objects: 'the students whom the Principal selected'. Point out the real trap: the relative clause has its own subject-verb structure inside the main sentence, and students who forget that reach for 'whom' to sound careful. Careful is not the same as correct.
Karthik. In the exam, fewer with countable plurals ('fewer than twenty students'), less with uncountable quantities ('less time', 'less water'). 'Less' with a count noun is common in speech and not a crime, but the answer key will expect 'fewer', and Karthik is marked by the key, not by the street. Say that plainly; students respect a teacher who distinguishes correctness from fashion.
Both exchanges go on the board as a two-line rule each, and the class copies them into the grammar section of the notebook.
3. A student asks why 'the quiz will be started at 9 a.m.' is wrong if the passive was taught as correct. How should Mr. Sekar explain it?
Read the worked answer
The passive is not wrong in itself; it is wrong here, for two reasons the student can test.
- Ask 'by whom?' 'The Principal will start the quiz' is fine, and 'The quiz will be started by the Principal' is also fine, because the agent exists and matters. With no agent, the passive hides information and the reader is left with an unfinished thought.
- Check the verb's transitivity in context. 'Begin/start' can be intransitive when the subject is the event itself: 'The quiz begins at 9.' That is why the active, agentless version is the natural notice sentence.
Give the class a transferable rule: use passive when the doer is unknown or unimportant, active when the doer or the event is the point. Notices announce events, so the event belongs in the active. Then set a two-minute drill: four sentences, mark P or A, and rewrite one of each. Mr. Sekar should say openly that the student's question is a good one - it is exactly the confusion the exam exploits.