That versus which발음듣기
That versus which
[Voiceover] Hello grammarians, we're gonna talk about that versus which but I would like to start off by saying that in the study of grammar there's basically this long, on-going fight between two camps and it's between the prescriptivists, who believe that language has concrete rules that need to be abided by, and the descriptivists, who also believe that language has rules, but see language as more subject to change than the prescriptivists would like.발음듣기
Now I find myself to be right in-between these two camps which frequently makes me feel like I want to stick out my hands and say, "You guys stop fighting.발음듣기
All of this is to say that Brian Garner, the prescriptive author of my main usage manual, Garner's Modern American Usage, is not a fan of the word which.발음듣기
On the other hand Geoffrey Pullum, one of the editors of my descriptive Cambridge Grammar of English says that this position of Garner's is utter bunkum and nonsense and that upon review of the entire body of English literature, the rules about which and that are largely made up.발음듣기
This is why it's so hard to get a good straight answer to that versus which on the Internet because everyone is arguing at once.발음듣기
Because half the people say that there are definite rules and then half the other people say, "The rules don't matter dude."발음듣기
But a prolonged study of both camps has led me to determine that there are distinctions in usage.발음듣기
From this entire argument, from these generations of just bickering, I have sussed out two distinctions.발음듣기
Now Brian Garner says that most of the time, nine times out of ten in fact, he says if you want to use a relative pronoun and you're trying to choose between that and which you should probably use that and the one time out of ten that you do want to use which, you're supposed to use a comma first.발음듣기
So you can write it that way with this little comma-net, but you can also write it without, as in "The carrot which was orange was tasty."발음듣기
Now the distinction between these two sentences is the distinction between non-restrictive and restrictive relative clauses.발음듣기
Because the carrot, comma, which was orange, comma, was tasty means that you could take out the comma-bracketed clause without changing the meaning of the sentence.발음듣기
But, the carrot, no comma, which was orange, no comma, was tasty that which part is a restrictive clause.발음듣기
"The carrot which was orange was tasty," doesn't preclude the idea that there might have been a non-orange, non-tasty carrot involved somewhere else.발음듣기
However, if we try to use that in a non-restrictive way, to say, "The carrot, that was orange, was tasty," it, to me, and to other native English speakers, that just sounds a little weird.발음듣기
But, of all the combinations that could be made using either which or that or commas or not commas, that, with commas, is the least common, and that is why to me, as a speaker and writer of standard-American English, it doesn't look regular.발음듣기
And to try that once more, without commas, now we have, "The carrot that was orange was tasty."발음듣기
So the way I like to remember this is that I imagine a witch who does not like other people.발음듣기
So I just imagine a kind of a cranky witch who lives all alone in a house in the woods, and anytime someone comes up to her house and asks her if she wants a subscription to a magazine, or does she want to come over for dinner, she says, "Blah!", and she slams the door.발음듣기
So the way this shakes out is that which doesn't refer to people, and that can refer to anything.발음듣기
"The dog that I saw, the snow that fell, the woman that boarded the plane," all of these are fine.발음듣기
"The dog which I saw, the snow which fell, the woman which boarded the plane," now, this to me, as a native speaker of English, doesn't sound right.발음듣기
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