??The situation, that I was telling you about last week, has gotten worse over the past two days.
-----------------------------------------------------
Linda Di Desidero, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Assistant Academic Director of
Writing
Communication, Arts, and
Humanities
University of
(240) 582-2830
(240) 582-2993
(fax)
Here’s
an example of a non-restrictive with “that” that I find at least marginally
acceptable:
The
situation in Iraqi Ministry of Justice, that I was telling you about last week,
has gotten worse over the past two days.
It
seems to work better with more complex noun phrases like this one than with
simple head nouns.
??The
situation, that I was telling you about last week, has gotten worse over the
past two days.
I
don’t have a strong sense that the former sentence would be better with “which”
for “that.”
Herb
From: Assembly for the
Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
STAHLKE, HERBERT F
Sent: 2008-03-09 23:17
To:
[log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: That/Which Rule post from
WPA
The
that/restrictive vs. which/nonrestrictive contrast is found pretty widely,
although non-restrictives in “that” do occur but are, as Huddleston and Pullum
note, marginal. As Baron suggests, Fowler did contribute to the modern
formal usage of “that” and “which,” but he didn’t particularly simplify an
inherently messy situation.
Herb
From: Assembly for the
Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Martha Kolln
Sent: 2008-03-09 18:32
To:
[log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: That/Which Rule post from
WPA
Carol,
I like Francis Christensen's explanation of the difference
between restrictive and nonrestrictive modifiers in his Notes Toward a New
Rhetoric. He uses the terms "defining" and "commenting." And the lack
of commas (with the that-clause) means that the clause is defining--that
is, pointing out a particular lawnmower. He also says
this:
A restrictive
modifier makes one statement and implies its opposite.
In the case of your sentence (a): The opposite, implied,
statement is this: "The lawnmower that is not broken is not in the
garage." That is to say, the reader of (a) has the right to infer that
meaning. If that meaning is not accurate--if, in fact, there is only one
lawnmower--then the commas are called for. And that means we need the
which-clause. (That-clauses are never set off by
commas.)
Here's the restrictive/nonrestrictive lesson I use; it
involves a simple appositive, not an adjectival clause, but the principle is the
same. I put two sentences on the board:
My husband, John, is a
farmer.
My son John is a
student.
Then I ask the class what I have just told them about the
size of my family. The answer is that I have more than one son. In
other words, I have a son not-John who is not a student. I usually
add another comment to emphasize the message: "If I were to tell my office
partner, 'My husband is sick today,' what would be his response?" The class
usually comes up with "Sorry to hear it" or "I hope he's not contagious" or some
other remark. Then I ask what my friend's response would be to this
statement: "My son is sick today." Of course, his response would be "Which
one?" In other words, the noun phrase "my husband" has only one possible
referent; the referent of "my son" has not been defined.
In the case of the that/which topic, it's safe to say
that "that clauses are never set off by commas"; which clauses,
however, go both ways; a which-clause without commas is equivalent to a
that-clause. I prefer to make the distinction, keeping which
for non-restrictive (commenting) modifiers. But that preference is
far from universal. Modern prose uses which-clauses both
ways.
Martha
I'm not familiar with Fowler, but Strunk & White say: "that is the defining, or restrictive pronoun, which the nondefining, or nonrestrictive" (87).
They give the following examples:
a) The lawn mower that is broken is in the garage.
vs.
b) The lawn mower, which is broken, is in the garage.
Frankly, I don't see the difference. If we are wondering which lawn mower is in question (ie. there are several lawn mowers in the garage and only one is broken), one might ask, "which one is broken?" And the owner of the lawn mowers might say "that one is broken," or, "the one which is broken is there." I don't really see the difference. Maybe someone can explain.
Carol
Linda Di Desidero <[log in to unmask]> wrote:Hi, all
Here's a post that came through the WPA listserv on the origin of 'that/which' THAT I thought you might like.
Linda
-----------------------------------------------------
There's a new post on the Web of Language --
Happy Birthday, Henry Fowler: inventor of that/which rule is 150 on
Monday, March 10
March 10, 2008, is the 150th birthday of Henry Watson Fowler, high
school Latin teacher, lexicographer, and author of the Dictionary of
Modern English Usage (1926), the most important book on English usage
of the 20th century (sorry Strunk and White, you lose hands down).
So here's my e-card to the man who single-handedly invented the
difference between that and which and convinced thousands of copy
editors that Druids had carved it on an ancient pillar at Stonehenge....
(picture here -- you have to go onlline to see it)
Actually, Fowler never hid the fact that he wasn't given the that/
which rule on Mt. Sinai. Quite the opposite: he insisted that "the
relations between that, who, & which have come to us from ourforefathers as an odd jumble, & plainly show that the language has
not been neatly constructed by a master-builder" (Modern English
Usage, 1926, that, s.v.; I'm not going to recount Fowler's rule here,
because it's too complicated, requiring a discussion of restrictive
and nonrestrictive clauses that's not particularly entertaining).
So Fowler decided to improve this jumble because, as he put it, "the
temptation to show how better use might have been made of the
material to hand is sometimes irresistible."....
Read the rest at the Web of Language
DB
Dennis Baron
Professor of English and Linguistics
Department of English
University of Illinois
608 S. Wright St.
Urbana, IL 61801
Linda Di Desidero, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Assistant Academic Director of Writing
University of Maryland University College
3501 University Boulevard, East
Adelphi, MD 20783
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