[Grammar] prior to him/his becoming prime minister

[LaMelange]

Hello teachers,

In the following sentence, is the word "him" correct?

It was Manmohan Singh, in his role as finance minister, who took the Indian economy forward from the 1990s into the 2000s prior to him becoming prime minister in 2004.

Could you please explain the rule?

Source: Visuality and Identity in Post-millennial Indian Graphic Narratives, by E. Dawson Varughese (pre-press)

 

[GoesStation]

The author could have avoided the issue by omitting him altogether.

 

[LaMelange]

Instead of saying "prior to him becoming prime minister" we could just say "before becoming prime minister", right?

 

[emsr2d2]

Instead of saying "prior to him becoming prime minister" we could just say "beforebecoming prime minister", right?

Not without a space between the two words I've marked in red, no.

 

[LaMelange]

Oops! Sorry, it escaped my attention. Thank you!

 

[emsr2d2]

Now it's been brought to your attention, please either use the Edit Post function to fix it in post #4 or write a new post with it laid out correctly.

 

[LaMelange]

Now it's been brought to your attention, please either use the Edit Post function to fix it in post #4 or write a new post with it laid out correctly.

Hope this corrected version is OK:

It was Manmohan Singh, in his role as finance minister, who took the Indian economy forward from the 1990s into the 2000s before becoming prime minister in 2004.

Thank you!

 

[Tdol]

That's fine.

If you are using a mouse, right-click and choose paste as plain text, it will remove any formatting, avoiding such issues.