Re: That wicked "which"

On 2025-02-08 20:30:48 +0000, Peter Flynn said:

On 08/02/2025 14:31, Stefan Ram wrote:
[...]

Mary-Claire van Leunen from Digital Equipment Corp said Fowler was
all about using "that" for defining clauses and "which" for
non-defining ones.

If someone or other from a computer company really said that she was talking through her hat and had never bothered to read Fowler's discussion for herself. If you're seriously interested in knowing what Fowler thought, the simplest approach is to read it yourself, specifically the discussion on pp. 634-638 of Modern English Usage (1st edn., 1926). The fact that it took him four pages to say it tells you immediately that it's not something to be expressed in a few words like "all about using 'that' for defining clauses and 'which' for non-defining ones". The closest he comes to saying that is this: "if writers would agree that to regard _that_ as the defining pronoun, & _which_ as the non-defining, there would be much gain both in lucidity & in ease. Some there are who follow this principle now; but it would be idle to preted that it is the practice either of the most or of the best writers".
Fowler shares with Dorothy Parker and Mark Twain the characteristic of not having said a large proportion of what people say he said.

 That was probably true, then.
 

The New Yorker, being the grammar sticklers they are, rode that wave
for ages. Then Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style" came along
and made this distinction a thing in American English.

 I think it was unknown in British English, where Fowler is honoured more in the breach than the observance.
 

Example sentences:

 >

All the students that know when to use "which" and "that"
will pass the quiz.

 "All students that" in this context (in BrE) might be a marker for a certain level of education. "All students who" would be what I was taught, but "All students what" is also very common.
 

The exam, which took place at the beginning of class, was not
difficult.

 But that is a very different meaning without the commas.
 1. The exam, which took place at the beginning of class, was not
    difficult.
= The exam was not difficult. BTW it took place at the beginning
   of class)
 2. The exam which took place at the beginning of class was not
    difficult.
= as opposed to the exam which took place at the end of class.
  Peter

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