Question

QUESTION

Read the following excerpt from "Our Schools are a Scandal" by Kyle Crichton: 'The teachers reply that they have the most nene-racking job ever
invented, battling as many as forty little demons Sit is now said to be sixty in some classrooms who are either actively sadistic or have adopted a
manner of silent resistance that defies a grain for learning to pierce their craniums.
What part of the sentence has a grammatical error?

Answer 1

"forty little demons ... who are."

Step-by-step explanation:

The word "who" is meant to refer to humans, so its use with mythological beings, animals and objects represents a grammatical error. This error can be seen in the text when the word "who" is used to refer to demons. Demons are not human beings, so they cannot be referenced by the words "who", being the correct one, use the word "which".

Answer 2

There is a grammatical error in: "forty little demons ... who are."

You could argue that since "demons" are not human beings but rather supernatural, evil spirits or entities (often meddling with humans' lives), they should not be referred to using the pronoun "who," but with "which."

However, it is understandable thanks to the context that the author is talking about human children here. Using the pronoun "which" to refer to them, although it would be grammatically correct, would sound very harsh because dehumanizing.