Comments on: That vs Which: A Pragmatic Approach

By: Lazarus

Lazarus — Fri, 28 Oct 2016 11:43:27 +0000

Rejecting grammatical structure that has evolved as part of the language, because of shallow preference, or laziness, is a terrible argument.

By: cerberus

cerberus — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 01:58:52 +0000

Okay, interesting. I suppose relative pronounce are much rarer in English than in most other languages I know. Participle can also serve to replace relative clauses in some cases, notably where the antecedent is the subject, which is when one cannot leave out that.

By: StoneyB

StoneyB — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 11:54:44 +0000

As I said, that's not a fight I'm interested in any more. And I'll have no problem if you write to that rule. But it's not my rule.

By: StoneyB

StoneyB — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 17:40:28 +0000

Thanks for the kind words. In informal texts the problem doesn’t arise as often as you might think. It’s not a problem at all when you’re writing for what’s called “voice talent” in the trade; making it natural is what they do. As for naturalistic dialogue: relative clauses are pretty infrequent in actual speech. Relative pronouns in the objective are usually dropped: people tend to say “This girl I met” rather than “This girl that I met”. And because speech is inherently paratactic, “The guy that/who runs the store on Dorsett” is at least as likely to come out “The guy, he runs the store …” or just “The guy, runs the store … “. In fact, about the only time I use relative that is when I’m trying to mark the character as making an effort to be more formal and hypotactic–that’s when relative clauses and “that” come into play, as in my point 3.

By: Milton

Milton — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 17:26:53 +0000

“Which” informs, “that” defines. Some sensible explanations:

http://www.economist.com/styleguide/w http://www.grammarbook.com/grammar/whoVwhVt.asp

By: cerberus

cerberus — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 12:11:39 +0000

Great post. I'm not sure I agree with your position, but it is very well written. It is indeed striking how you don't use relative that at all in your post, and only once or twice did I really notice. Question: when you use restrictive which in a text that is not supposed to sound formal at all, aren't you sometimes a bit worried about the impression of formality that which may give?