I am self-publishing a book, and when I called their office today, the message said…“We will answer your call in the order it was received.” Shouldn’t it be "In the order in WHICH it was received, or are they correct?
Your version is a bit more formal, but I’d say both are OK. What strikes me as odd is talking about the order in which a **single ** call was received. This doesn’t make much sense to me. It would be more logical to say something like: “Thank you for your call. It has been placed in a queue. Calls will be answered in the order in which they were received”.
First, I think the company should have said “We will answer your calls in the order they…”, whatever else follows, as one of anything can’t by definition have an order.
In answer to your specific query about the need, or otherwise, to include the words “in which”, there is, I believe, no need. Consider “Come and see the place where I live”. In such cases, it’s possible to say (especially in an informal register or in situations like the one you quote where time is of the essence and brevity is needed) "“Come and see the place I live”. In the same way, the “location” phrase “in which” in your example may be dropped (ellipted) without breaking any grammar “rule”.l
Er, well strictly speaking, your call, being just one call, wasn’t received in any order. So I think what they meant was: “All calls will be answered in the order in which they were received.”
But yes, it does need the “in” (and therefore “in which” in this case) as can be seen by turning the sentence around:
“In which order were the calls received?” (or, informally, “Which order were the calls received in?”)
“The calls were received in this order.”
Alas, I must settle for the silver medal.
Yes - I gave it in a passive voice, but it would be better as “We will answer all calls in the order in which we received them.”
I’m not sure I agree. Sure, informally, you don’t need them, but the OP asked for nitpickery.
You wouldn’t say “I live London”, so therefore you shouldn’t say “London is the city I live”. True “the place I live” has achieved an idiomatic status, meaning “the place I live (in)”, but grammatically it’s not right.
Similarly, you wouldn’t say “I received the calls this order”, so you shouldn’t say “I will answer the calls the order I received them”.
In casual speech, as I say, it would be fine, though.
Ignore my first post, then, as I seem to have argued my way to the opposite conclusion :smack: Looks like one “in” is enough…
Well, thank you, my people, but I tend to agree with Colophon.
I always use the test of turning a sentence around to determine its correctness.
(i.e. the other day, I was trying to explain to my grandchild that “This is She” is correct when responding to a phone call inquiry, and not “This is her”). It’s pretty reliable.
I also feel that the use of the word ‘which’ just makes sense. They are both probably fine, but I just thought it was strange because I was calling a place of ‘letters’.
They told me it would ‘be answered in the order it was received’ because, I suppose, they were busy at the time of day that I called.
I see on preview that Roger and Cunctator have addressed the issue of answering one call in order.
The loss of “in which” (for which “where” is often substituted, e.g., “The government issued a report where it said that…”) is one of my pet peeves. I find it the use of “where” nominally acceptable when, as in Roger’s case, there is a there there. But when there is no physical place (as in my example), “where” strikes me as sloppy and subliterate.
BTW, if you’re self publishing, who is the “they”?
Now I’m confused by Colophon.
Hmmmmmm…
I have waited years for some else to notice how incorrect that statement is. Every time I hear it I think to myself, “How can a call (singular) be in any order but first?”
A more correct recording would be, “Incoming calls are answered in the order in which they were received.”
Sure it’s nitpicky. But it’s been bugging me for years. I’m glad I’m not the only one.
But a report is a physical thing (you can point to it - even to the line where the quotation in question is located), so I think you’re being a bit irrational, with all due respect! Virtually all use of language is extended, or metaphorical, anyway, so you’ll end up in a bit of a pretty pass if you insist on a degree of literalness that must be attained before you allow certain words.
With regard to the original query, there is some similarity between the following two sentences:
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We will answer your calls in the order [in which] they were received.
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The passing of these laws has affected the way [in which] we regard the issue today.
It seems that there is something in the nature of the meaning of the words ‘order’ and ‘way’ (and others like them) which allows omission of the type we are discussing. This appears to be happening at the interface of collocation (the company that lexical items - content words: nouns, adjectives, etc. - keep) and colligation (the company that grammatical items - pronouns, etc. - keep). Collocation, in particular, is a very useful notion to consider when analysing language and attempting to decide on usage matters.
On the other hand, of course, while ‘We regard the issue this way’ is perfectly acceptable, ‘We received the calls this order’ isn’t. However, the very fact that BOTH ‘We regard the issue this way’ AND ‘We regard the issue in this way’ should alert us to the possibility, and indeed the existence and acceptance, of variability in English.
A search will show that written texts of the type ‘the order they were written/created/read’ are very common. Someone with an interest in linguistics therefore has not only to decide whether(s)he will prefer a prescriptive or a descriptive approach, but also to attempt to understand the patterns or principles that are at work.
By the way, this is what I would call real grammatical nitpickery!
Probably the printers. Personal opinion from one who has self-published two books.
Sad, I know!
Should read: “On the other hand, of course, while ‘We regard the issue this way’ is perfectly acceptable, ‘We received the calls this order’ isn’t. However, the very fact that BOTH ‘We regard the issue this way’ AND ‘We regard the issue in this way’ are acceptable should alert us to the possibility, and indeed the existence and acceptance, of variability in English.”
I disagree with the point about one call can’t be answered in order. I believe it’s clear that the meaning of “We will answer your call in the order in which it was received” – which is the correct phrasing in my opinion – is this:
“We’re getting a buttload of calls here, and we’ll get to yours once we’ve dealt with all the others that got here before yours did. Yeah, yeah, we know you don’t give a damn about anyone else’s call, but tough titties, you don’t get jumped ahead of anyone else. We’ll get to you when we get to you.”
The point being that “We will answer your call in the order in which it was received” is going to be used only in situations where multiple calls come in and are queued for response in time order.
Oh, the perils of trying to be You-centred!
I believe, “We will answer your calls in the order they were received,” is actually short for, “We will answer your calls in the order that they were received.” It’s similar to how we say, “I think he has a car,” instead of, “I think that he has a car.” I do, however, think that in which is more gramatically correct in the original sentence than that but it would be harder to prove than comparing in which with no conjuction at all.
There’s is correct: “We will answer your call in the order it was received.” Alternatively you can say, “we will answer your call in the order which it was recieved.” [Which] in this case is an object pronoun in an identifying relative clause and can be omitted. The relative clause, [which it was received] is identifying the order. Compare, “I feel sorry for the man that she married.” ‘That’ is optional and the sentence is still correct if you say, “i feel sorry for the man she married.”
In non-identifying relative clauses the object pronoun cannot be removed. Compare “She went to work with my brother, whom she later married” NOT “she went to work with my brother, she later married.” Non-identifying relative clauses give us extra information about the main clause.
In your case the preposition ‘in’ prefixing ‘which’ is superfluous, and strictly speaking ‘in the order in which it was received’ is incorrect. Hope this helps.
And out of interest if I may ask, what book are you self-publishing? Hopefully not a grammar book 
I don’t think so (to both statements)!
Consider the question: “In which order were the calls received?”
You cannot say, in any dialect or register that I’m aware of, “Which order were the calls received?” (although you can of course say “Which order were the call received in?”, but that helps my case, not yours).
I’ll ferret around for a description/explanation of this type of usage in a grammar book anon.
I figured out where I got confused. It’s because there are two "in"s needed -
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The order in which the calls were received
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The order in which the calls will be answered
OK, they are the same, but you still have two clauses, so you need two "in"s.
- We will answer your calls in this order.
Which order?
- The order in which they were received.
Put 'em together and you get:
“We will answer your calls in the order in which they were received.”
Phew!