Re: That wicked "which"

On 2025-02-06, Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie> wrote:

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'.

How would you go about finding "which" to be very common?
In that particular case, the most natural spoken version for my own
(generally conservative and formal) spoken BrE is to use neither
"that" nor "which". If I used one, it would probably be "that", unless
there were also a pause "I think those are now historical curiosities,
which you can ignore".