Is it grammatically correct to use "who" for inanimate objects?

Question

Is it grammatically correct to use "who" for non-persons such as organizations, animals?

Consider a question

Q1: "Who should I feed?" and the answer

A1: "Feed the hungry, your friends and your pets."

Would the answer be grammatically correct if it includes "pets", but the question had a pronoun "who"?

A similar example:

Q2: "Who should I donate money to?"

A2: "Donate the money to the poor and to the universities."

Would the example answer be grammatically correct if it mentions universities which are organizations rather than persons?

Anything that can be either viewed as an agent or a group of humans, metaphoric or generic, can use who as an interrogative pronoun. That covers all your examples. — John Lawler, Commented May 13, 2015 at 22:09
Surely some confusion there, Dávid. “inanimate objects” can’t include “animals” whether they’re pets or not. English often treats organizations as persons… though not in this context. As often as not, pets do get to slip through the net, yet the difference is domestic familiarity, not grammatical stricture. It’s usually desirable that answers follow questions in terms of number, tense and other qualities but they don’t have to, and certainly not with examples like “Who should I (anything)?” — Robbie Goodwin, Commented Jan 13, 2021 at 8:48

Nick Doe · Accepted Answer · 2015-05-13 22:22:11Z

-1

Who or what are your basic choices here. Pets can also be considered addressed by who.

answered May 13, 2015 at 22:22

Nick Doe

29

@ScotM: the question specifically asked about pets.
– Peter Shor
Commented May 14, 2015 at 2:27

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