John was only one of the boys whom as you know was not eligible.

I think if a comma had preceded ''who'', then it was possible for ''who'' to refer to ''one of the boys'', in which case verb would have been singular. Of course, it changes the meaning. But that would have been the strong contender (in that case: both option B and D would have been the strong contender), after all original sentence as it appears to me could have two meanings (either ''who'' modifying ''one'' or ''who'' modifying ''boys''). But my understanding is that just as the ''ING and ED'' modifiers when they are not preceded by a comma must immediately modify the preceding noun, in a similar way, if a relative pronoun ''who'' is not preceded by a comma (as in this question), it should immediately modify the preceding noun ( in this case ''boys''), thus option B is the correct answer.

Experts, please let me know if above logic is correct.

Thank You
Vighnesh

Hi VIGHNESHKAMATH,

There seems to be no issue in the second point of your analysis, i.e., "who" does follow the "touch-rule" as do "participial phrases" when not set off by commas. But as a word of caution, you may come across a "present participial/past participial" phrase preceded by a comma modifying its far-away noun. So, do not discount a "present participial/past participial" phrase for the presence of a comma before it. That particular comma might have been used as a parenthesis to include another modifier.

Coming to your first point, I believe that even if you modified the placement of the comma, option (D) would still not be a strong contender.
Let's see how-

(D) John was only one of the boys, who as you know, was not eligible.

The sentence as it stands now is off in terms of meaning. When the author writes, something is one of many, the reader expects to "come to know" what that type of many is? What quality or character does that one particular group possess (here they all were ineligible)?

The modified sentence means that John was only one of the boys, and he was not eligible. Although "who", as the sentence now stands, can refer to the head of the noun phrase "one of the boys", does it make the meaning better? It only detaches the binding "quality" that is all of these boys "were not eligible", so "who" incorrectly modifies the singular noun "John". That makes the meaning muddy, and it's clearly not sensible to change verb from "were" to "was". By keeping the verb "were", "who" logically modifies "boys" and that should be the correct modification.

If Daagh were here, taking a lexical approach, he would have said, "Who writes like that?".

Hope it helps.

Can someone explain why D is wrong?

Hi Dragongirl24,

"who" refers to "boys" that is plural, so "who" must take the plural verb "were". In (D), "who" as the subject is taking a singular verb "was", this modification is incorrect.

Hope it helps.

Okay. Thanks!

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