discussing "Can I Help Who's Next"

Thanks, Feathers!  That phrase has been bothering me for years (I originally posted about it in 2005, shortly after discovering EF) but I could never quite identify why it seemed so odd.  Finally, I think I've figured it out.

As a corollary to my previous post, I think the information/person distinction between "who is" and "whoever is" also explains why so many people (not just me; google the phrase and you'll find lots of bloggers complaining about it) hear the phrase as "is it my fault who's next?" or "can I control who's next?"  It's because the idiomatic meaning of "can I help" does require a fact, rather than a person, as its object.  (Though admittedly, it would usually be "can I help it if..." or  "can I help that..." ) Can I help it if it's raining? Can I help that the bank is always crowded at lunchtime?

Whew.  It's a relief to finally be able to explain this one to my own satisfaction.

Hi Kooyeen.

Reported speech: you report information, and particles like "what, who, how, etc." don't change. Examples:
I want to know who that guy is.
I found out who that guy is.

This doesn't seem like reported speech to me -- I'm not sure what you would call the role of "who that guy is" in the sentence -- but yes, the sentences are correct.

But... you wouldn't say this:
He is who married my sister.
You say "He is the one who married my sister", don't you?  Yes, that's right.
 

 If I  "we have to find who's responsible," I would think it was somewhat ambiguous and should be re-worded.  It's certainly something people might say, though -- most people don't spend one-zillionth the amount of time thinking about language as we do here, and even pedants like us are not as careful (or obsessive) in conversation as we might be in writing.

So, here's why I said it's ambiguous -- "We have to find out who's responsible" means one thing, (we have to figure out who is responsible) and "we have to find the one who's responsible" (or "we have to find whoever's responsible") means something else (we have to find the actual person).  "We have to find who's responsible" doesn't exactly say either one, but someone might say it intending either meaning -- or both at once.  Usually, of course, you would want to find out who's responsible and then actually find that person, so most people would probably not spend too much time thinking about the difference. 

I find in supermarkets it is simply "Next, please!" or "Who's next?"

Feebs11 wrote:

I find in supermarkets it is simply "Next, please!" or "Who's next?"

"Can I help the next (person/ customer) in line?"

Okay, never again will I attempt to split a thread!  (Unless they change the software.)  I did my best to get all these posts out of the "Most Annoying Phrase" thread and various other threads and collect them all together under an appropriate subject line, but it doesn't work very well -- I'm not sure they all made it over here, and I'm not sure they're in the right order anymore.  Althought there are now about 15 posts in this thread, that doesn't show up in the forum index.  And you've probably all gotten 16 different e-mails telling you that your posts were moved, split, joined or otherwise mangled.  Sorry for all the confusion.