Solved Who [has or have] access?

[CaffeineAddict]

You which are native English speakers please tell me which one of the following questions is grammatically correct?

Who have access to data?
OR
Who has access to data?

I've been asking this question on English forums but dudes there closed my question as "duplicate" where the actual duplicate does not answer my question nor has any answers accepted.

And despite me making an edit as instructed by site guidelines they insisted that my question remain closed, so fck. them, I'm now here to ask you.

 

[ron.alan]

Right off the bat I'd say "Who has access to data?" is the correct way. But that depends if "who" is singular ("has" is used for the singular). I'm not sure if "who" can also be plural, but I guess "has" would still be used. "Who have" just sounds awful.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

But that depends if "who" is singular. I'm not sure if "who" can also be plural.

That's exactly the problem, we don't know that because only an answer to the question can answer that, but there is no answer.

If answer is "we" or "I" then "I or we HAVE access to data"
BUT
if answer is "she" or "he" then "she or he HAS access to data"

But that's not obvious from the question itself which is "Who HAS/HAVE access to data?"

"has" sounds natural to me too, but grammar can be surprising to us who don't speak English in RL.

 

[MikeRocor]

Right off the bat I'd say "Who has access to data?" is the correct way. But that depends if "who" is singular ("has" is used for the singular). I'm not sure if "who" can also be plural, but I guess "has" would still be used. "Who have" just sounds awful.

You are spot on.

Since it's a question, "Who has..." then we can't really know if the answer will be singular or plural but we know the answer will be at least singular so "has" makes sense. Even if the answer is "no one", "has" is still correct. If we find out that the answer is more than one person, then it's too late because we're no longer asking the question, though further discussion might use the phrase, "Ralph and Earl have access..."

---
<rant>
Allow me to rant for moment about treating an organization as plural - I think its a UK thing because I see it often on bbc.com:

"Microsoft have denied that (their update deliberately screwed off your grub installation)"

In this sentence, "Microsoft", even though it is made up of many individuals, is still a singular entity so "Microsoft has denied..." is the (only) correct way to say it.

"English" (the language) is singular
"The English" (lots of people) is plural
"England" (the place or the football team) is singular

Alas, horribly, "The United States" (the country) is singular while "The United States" (the sates, as a group) is plural. I'm not convinced you can fix that by decapitalizing the phrase.

Grrr!

FYI: I'm on U.S. English. My way is right.
</rant>

 

[Aristarchus]

this is (unfortunately) context dependent: (users) who have access to vs (user) who has access to
If this is a question. Then obviously
Who has access to (something)?

 

[Condobloke]

Who has Access?...is correct. Two reasons why...who is singular when used this way, and this is correct context for a question.

Who have Access....is not a question....It is used in a different context....as part of a statement....the word have confers/confirms ownership eg The people in charge are those who have access ....plural is assumed here....If that were to be stated in the singular, it would refer to one person.....eg Bob has access to the papers etc

 

[Brickwizard]

"has " is the singular "Have" is the plural and also the first-person singular

John has.
they have, or Jill Jim,& Fred. have.
finally
I have

You may have noticed I also still use the Oxford comma

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Thank you all for your help! it's appreciated, I'm marking this as solved.

 

[Brickwizard]

I'm on U.S. English

I can see that, by the usual miss-spelling of decapitalising

No matter where you tell your computer it is located, or which distribution you use, the bloody thing will keep changing my true English to the US miss-spellings, hence I spend a lot of time having to correct everything.And now with this modern text speak I have little idea what the youngsters are talking about.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

And now with this modern text speak I have little idea what the youngsters are talking about.

lol, to understand what it means to be "on" something in such contexts, this speak comes from cases when somebody says to be "on" drugs and feel that way, or asks what kind of drugs are you "on"?

To be "on" something comes from association to be "on" drugs and possibly feel that way.

I hope I don't break any rules by talking drugs here, but that's what "on" means.

 

[MikeRocor]

I can see that, by the usual miss-spelling of decapitalising

No matter where you tell your computer it is located, or which distribution you use, the bloody thing will keep changing my true English to the US miss-spellings, hence I spend a lot of time having to correct everything.And now with this modern text speak I have little idea what the youngsters are talking about.

"decapitalising" is a word?! I thought I invented it just for this occasion.

Your computer is probably just trying to evangelize the correct way to spell things.

The youngsters often have little idea what they're talking about, either. One of the nice things about learning to construct complete sentences is that you concurrently learn to construct complete thoughts. Kids aren't learning either these days - or at least most of them aren't practicing either.

 

[Brickwizard]

decapitalising" is a word?! I thought I invented it just for this occasion

Yes it's fairly modern in English it only dates back to the 1870's [usualy a pointless answer on the quiz of the same name]

 

[MikeRocor]

Well at least it doesn't date back to 1793, when the french decapitalized Henry and Marie, leaving their entire country in lower case ever since. (Apologies to any Frenchmen on the forum. That was the first famous head of state I could think of.)

 

[Brickwizard]

That was the first famous head of state

Should that not be " Former head"

 

[ron.alan]

they have, or Jill Jim,& Fred. have.
finally
I have

You may have noticed I also still use the Oxford comma

But you forgot the comma between Jill and Jim. (And, you have a period after Fred, but based on what you wrote I'm sure you meant to type a comma.) BTW, I'm a big fan of the Oxford comma. It just doesn't seem right without it.

 

[Brickwizard]

It just doesn't seem right without it

There was a lunch special sign in a pub where we had stopped, it said " Fresh caught Fish and chips" so I asked where they catch their fresh chips?, I just got a blank look.