"No. I mean, we all are either married or have boyfriends in the film, and there are guys, too. It’s us three actresses and a female producer at the moment. We’re looking for a [director of photography] right now and are looking at some females, but it really depends when whomever is available and is the best, obviously." - Famke Janssen, in response to a question about whether the stories in the movie she is working on with Christina Ricci and Rosario Dawson have female themes
Famke has made two pronoun errors: she has used an objective personal pronoun ("us") as a predicate nominative, and she has used an objective indefinite relative pronoun ("whomever") as the subject of a clause. Famke has also used awkward diction.
In the clause "It’s us three actresses and a female producer at the moment," the subject is "it," the verb is the contracted form of "is," and the predicate nominative is the phrase "us three actresses and a female producer." Pronouns that function as predicate nominatives in sentences that contain linking verbs should be in the subjective case; however, Famke chose to use the objective pronoun "us" in her statement. Replace the objective pronoun with a subjective pronoun in the same person and number to correct the error.
The use of objective pronouns as predicate nominatives is extremely common in informal speech and writing, but when you are taking standardized examinations and writing formal documents, remember that only subjective pronouns ("I/you/he/she/we/they/it") should function as predicate nominatives.
In the clause "whomever is available and is the best," the subject is the objective relative pronoun "whomever." Replace the objective relative pronoun "whomever" with the objective personal pronoun "him" to help you identify this error:
- him is available and is the best
This does not make sense. Replace the objective relative pronoun "whomever" with the subjective relative pronoun "whoever" to correct the error.
Famke has make an awkward choice of words by saying, "it really depends when." This diction is not uncommon in colloquial speech, but "it really depends on when" is much more common.
This version of Famke's statement corrects the pronoun errors and avoids the awkward diction:
"It’s we three actresses and a female producer at the moment. We’re looking for a [director of photography] right now and are looking at some females, but it really depends on when whoever is available and is the best, obviously."
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