Is this grammatically correct: "The monkey who I'm wondering if can see my ears."

[aboubenadhem@lemmy.world]

“The monkey of whose ability to see my ears I’m wondering”.

[pancake@lemmygrad.ml]

What about using commas? "The monkey who, I'm wondering, can see my ears".

[corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca]

if

whether

[idkwhatusernametoputherelolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

The monkey, who I wonder if it can see my ears.

Disclaimer: I have Cs in English Class...

[diddlydee@feddit.uk]

Whether would be used if you ask 'whether the monkey can see my ears or not' i.e. when there are 2 stated options.

[churbleyimyam@lemm.ee]

They do all sound stupid.

As it's a complete statement just say "I'm wondering if the monkey can see my ears."

Because it is 'the' monkey, rather than 'a' monkey, it is implied that the monkey has already been referred to.

[seahorsetreble@lemmy.world]

I use "they/them" for any animal/sentient being (whether or not they're human) rather than "it" in order to avoid objectifying them, but I recognise this is not standard English. I also use "who" instead of "which" (A monkey/dolphin/dog/goat who (...) rather than a monkey which (...), etc) and basically any of the personal pronouns or words you would use for a human rather than an object (or I guess typically nonhuman animals). It's a deliberate deviation from grammatical rules/traditional language for the sake of aligning with my personal beliefs & ethics about animal rights/vegan stuff. You can just ignore that part though because it's just a force of habit, I actually forgot that would seem weird since it's normal to me, the real confusion I had was with the overall sentence structure & how to phrase it; it still doesn't sound right to me whether you use "it" or "they".

[seahorsetreble@lemmy.world]

I use "they/them" for any animal/sentient being (whether or not they're human) rather than "it" in order to avoid objectifying them, but I recognise this is not standard English. I also use "who" instead of "which" (A monkey/dolphin/dog/goat who (...) rather than a monkey which (...), etc) and basically any of the personal pronouns or words you would use for a human rather than an object (or I guess typically nonhuman animals). It's a deliberate deviation from grammatical rules/traditional language for the sake of aligning with my personal beliefs & ethics about animal rights/vegan stuff. You can just ignore that part though because it's just a force of habit, I actually forgot that would seem weird since it's normal to me, the real confusion I had was with the overall sentence structure & how to phrase it; it still doesn't sound right to me whether you use "it" or "they".

[seahorsetreble@lemmy.world]

Maybe the pronoun "they" works? "I'm wondering if they can..."

[verdigris@lemmy.ml]

If your wondering isn't critical to the thought I would simplify to "the monkey who might be able to see my ears" or "can possibly see my ears". Otherwise AbouBenAdhem has the best option, though I might also suggest "The monkey whose ability to see my ears I'm wondering about"; splitting the prepositional phrase is more strictly proper but I think it reads a little better like this.

[schlemmy@lemmy.ml]

I'm puzzled. Is this not common in English? We use them all the time in Dutch.

[sparrowhawk@feddit.it]

Yeah I understand, and I like the decision, i hope my sentence example was of help

[gayhitler@lemmy.ml]

None of them are grammatically correct because none of them are complete thoughts let alone sentences.

All three try to specify the particular monkey by enumerating that it can see your ears but do no more.

Take away the description of the monkeys ability to see your ears and what you’re left with is “the monkey”.

“The monkey” isn’t a sentence.

If you are the subject and what’s happening is that you’re wondering if the monkey can see your ears then the sentence you want is “I’m wondering if the monkey can see my ears.”

If, as I suspect, you’re using “the monkey whose ability to see my ears I’m wondering about” as the subject of some larger more complex and cool sentence then you gotta lay out that part before someone can give solid grammatical advice.

[tomi000@lemmy.world]

I see, thats actually good practice, just unusual. The "who" also sounds less odd.

[jbrains@sh.itjust.works]

There is an implicit binary choice here, so "whether" fits. Both work, although I, for one, prefer to use "whether" for binary choices and "if" when there are more options. This is similar to my preference for "between" only for two things and "among" for more than two.

[thcdenton@lemmy.world]

[donjuanme@lemmy.world]

Could that monkey see my ears? I wonder to myself

Or, I wonder to myself 'could that monkey see my ears?' (maybe not ', maybe a comma? But anything is better than it imo)