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The press release claims that the president of France is

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Dipankar6435
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The press release claims that the president of France is [#permalink] New post   17 Mar 2013, 03:11
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The press release claims that the president of France is older than that of the United States.
The MGMAT SC book has this sentence as correct answer in one of the exercises(Pg-208 Q-9)
I do not think that the above sentence is grammatically correct. We know that THAT cannot be used to refer to human beings. Here that is used for the President.
Can somebody please explain this :roll:
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emmak
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Re: THAT-can it be used to refer to human beings?? [#permalink] New post   17 Mar 2013, 04:13
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Dipankar6435 wrote:
I do not think that the sentence is grammatically correct. We know that THAT cannot be used to refer to human beings. Here that is used for the President. :roll:


The press release claims that the president of France is older than that of the United States.

Hi Dipankar,
You are confused between the use of THAT as a Demonstrative pronoun & Relative pronoun.

If THAT is used as relative pronoun,then it can not be used to modify Human beings. But in this sentence THAT is used as a Demonstrative pronoun so we can use it to refer a human being.


Press Kudos if the explanation helped you.
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Re: THAT-can it be used to refer to human beings?? [#permalink] New post   17 Mar 2013, 07:37
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'That ', a restrictive pronoun, which refers to a specific noun (either a thing or a person) in the previous part of the clause, is also usable for human beings. Apart from the restrictive nature of the comparison, which requires the use of ‘that’ we cannot think of a different pronoun in this case to replace “that”. Can we? Or we must totally avoid the pronoun ‘that’.
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Dipankar6435
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Re: THAT-can it be used to refer to human beings?? [#permalink] New post   17 Mar 2013, 07:41
emmak wrote:
Dipankar6435 wrote:
I do not think that the sentence is grammatically correct. We know that THAT cannot be used to refer to human beings. Here that is used for the President. :roll:


The press release claims that the president of France is older than that of the United States.

Hi Dipankar,
You are confused between the use of THAT as a Demonstrative pronoun & Relative pronoun.

If THAT is used as relative pronoun,then it can not be used to modify Human beings. But in this sentence THAT is used as a Demonstrative pronoun so we can use it to refer a human being.


Press Kudos if the explanation helped you.


Well alright, but these are the kind of grammar rules that put me at bay in SC. Now I will have to learn how to distinguish between demonstrative pronouns and relative pronouns :evil: . Nevertheless, thanx for the explanation.
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Re: THAT-can it be used to refer to human beings?? [#permalink] New post   17 Mar 2013, 07:44
daagh wrote:
'That ', a restrictive pronoun, which refers to a specific noun (either a thing or a person) in the previous part of the clause, is also usable for human beings. Apart from the restrictive nature of the comparison, which requires the use of ‘that’ we cannot think of a different pronoun in this case to replace “that”. Can we? Or we must totally avoid the pronoun ‘that’.


That makes a little more sense than rote memorization. So basically, If that cannot be replaced by any other pronoun in the sentence (like who) then it is permissible to use it :)
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Re: The press release claims that the president of France is [#permalink] New post   02 Oct 2020, 08:44
How about the following as the solution?

The press release claims that the French President in older than the American one

The word 'one' at the end is necessary because we're supposed to compare two nouns and in the absence of 'one' we'd be comparing a noun with an adjective. While I do agree that the sentence construction seems awkward towards the end, can someone pinpoint any grammatical errors in it? Thanks in advance.
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Re: The press release claims that the president of France is [#permalink]
02 Oct 2020, 08:44
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