Re: That wicked "which"

On 2025-02-06 16:12:10 +0000, Peter Flynn said:

On 06/02/2025 12:00, Stefan Ram wrote:

Back in the '80s, Donald E. Knuth was all about his students using "that" for restrictive clauses and "which" for non-restrictive ones.

He's not alone: I remember one of my teachers in college getting cross when people didn't use the words his way (which was different :-)
 

Turns out, "which" is like a rare Pokemon in spoken English, but it's
the go-to choice in written English in the UK.
 Meanwhile, "that" is the bread and butter of spoken English and the
top dog in written American English.

 I think those are now historical curiosities which you can ignore.
I think those are now historical curiosities that you can ignore.
 I would find "which" to be very common in spoken British English, but my standards, which you may disagree with, are probably different to others'.

Without looking it up, my recollection is that 99 years ago Fowler thought that using "which" to introduce restrictive clauses was perfectly acceptable, but he advised use of "that" in writing, because he thought that a comma was too weak a symbol to distinguish unambiguously between restrictive and non-restrictive clauses.

 

But for native speakers, it's probably cool to trust their gut if there's no chance of things getting lost in translation . . .

 Probably the best advice.
 Peter

--
Athel -- French and British, living in Marseilles for 37 years; mainly in England until 1987.