I chose to go the easy route. The British, French, and Dutch do not have anything with similar capabilities.”, Copyright © 2020 Daily Writing Tips . It is used for things, not people. That does not make it correct. It is better to communicate more clearly than to worry about a questionable "rule. Restrictive and Nonrestrictive © Copyright Learn English Network - All Rights Reserved. Today we’re going to talk about a grammar myth: that you can never use the word “that” to refer to people. A further point worth noting is that the opening pronoun in restrictive clauses is frequently left out, so that you can say “The cup he stepped on is in the bin”. Even though the previous sentence is technically correct, it’s usually best to maintain a distinction between people and not-people by using who in reference to a type of person: “He’s the kind of doctor who volunteers at a clinic on his day off.” (The use of that in association with people itself, however, is well attested, as in “I don’t like the kind of people that she hangs out with.”) But a class of people is always considered a thing, not a person, so a sentence like “This is a team who is going places” is never correct. If you have any problems, please let us know. Regarding the distinction in usage between that and which, should a comma always precede “which” in a non restrictive clause? Using That, Which, and Who as Relative Pronouns . In French, that is so, you can’t leave out the “que.” In English, people do get away with leaving it out. Historically, there is little evidence that this "rule" ever had a significant effect on English expression, but writers should be aware that some correspondents have been taught this practice. the clause and insert commas around the clause.). The English language is forever changing. All rights reserved.This page URL: http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/which.htmLast modified: 16 February 2008. Examples: That is a book which I need for the class. I know which is “the real thing” alright, but perhaps that’s what you mean by “watered-down English”. They usually help with understanding the concept… Thanks again! The argument here is that the clause “that is out of the ordinary and has a major impact on the person’s life” modifies and constrains “event”. Linguistically and grammatically, the subordinating conjunction “that” must be there, and the elimination of it is merely LAZY speech and writing. Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! "Who" (or whom) is a pronoun, and is used as the subject or object of a verb to show which person you are referring to, or to add information about a person just mentioned. -- Restrictive and Nonrestrictive, Click here for exercises in the use of "that" versus "which". I generally like to keep the “that” in there; I think that depending on the sentence (see, I just put a “that” in there), having a “that” in there kind of gives you an idea of what’s coming up, so you don’t go headlong into a phrase that comes to a halt or some surprising ending, making you double back and reread it. Oxford Dictionaries say of “whose” – “used to indicate that the following noun belongs to or is associated with the person or thing mentioned in the previous clause”. Here is a rather artificial example to make the point: The cup which he stepped on is in the bin. Yes, we often do miss out “that” in restrictive relative clauses (unless it refers to the subject) – “The man I love”, just like we can often miss out “that” in that-clauses – “He said (that) you were to call him back”. You'll also get three bonus ebooks completely free. Clauses beginning with "Who." It is used for people, not things. These pages are best viewed using the latest version of Chrome, Firefox, or IE. B. Correct: Who's coming to visit tomorrow? Hmm. They are the type of people who would lie to their mothers. Page created 28 Sep. 1996Last updated: 16 Feb. 2008, Problems viewing this page? Thanks! Mignon Fogarty is the founder of Quick and Dirty Tips and the author of seven books on language, including the New York Times bestseller "Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing." “This form is sometimes called nonessential because the information that follows which is not required. Relative pronouns is a subject that/which has stymied me all my life. That normally refers to things but it may refer to a class or type of person. Somewhere in my early years of education I was told that a person could use ‘who’ or ‘whom’ when some will only use ‘whom’. In my way of thinking, the RAF, the French Air Force, and the U.S. Air Force are all “it” or “which”, and never “who” or “whom”, because these are all organizations (collective nouns). In the first, you’re being told about a specific cup with the special property that it is the one he stepped on; in the second, the fact that he stepped on it is an ancillary bit of information. My Mother was an excellent high school English teacher in the United States for many years, and she was a graduate of a respected state university in Tennessee. D.A.W. rather than "that" or "which" to introduce a clause telling us something When writing a restrictive clause, introduce Specifically with describing the terms, “restrictive” and “non-restrictive.” I also was taught that the relative pronoun, “that,” refers to something specific and the relative pronoun, “which,” refers to something not so specific when determining when to use these two words in a sentence. If you take it out, you are left with A suitcase is useless, obviously a different meaning to that intended. That refers mostly to things, though a class or type of person is also sometimes referred to by this pronoun: “He’s the kind of doctor that volunteers at a clinic on his day off.”. I agree that it's grating to hear people referenced with a "that." I never paid much attention to the that/which issue until I got a computer with Word and spellchecker, and it would correct every “that” to “which.” I finally gave up and gave in, and so it goes, with a comma before every “which,” the whole 9 yards, whatever the spellchecker says, just move on. Again, you can’t do this with non-restrictive clauses. D.A.W. But if this distinction is so necessary to avoid confusion, why don’t we get confused by relative clauses with who? When writing about human beings, we use "who" The relative pronoun “which” has Today we’re going to talk about a grammar myth: that you can never use the word “that” to refer to people. The company, which / that hired me. a human being, use "who" to introduce the clause.). Who and whom refer only to people, and whose almost always does so: “Whom you associate with is your concern.”, “The person whose jacket was left behind is the likely culprit.”, (Whose is sometimes used to refer to an object, as in “Notice the car whose headlights are off.” This awkward usage should be replaced by, for example, “Notice the car that has its headlights off” or, better, “Notice the car with its headlights off.”). Although in general grammar it’s not a hard-and-fast rule that you must use “who” to refer to people, certain style guides do require it. ". Contents | Index | Previous | Next That Versus Which The traditional approach to this question is to use "that" with restrictive clauses and "which" with nonrestrictive clauses. Consider the following. Then we’ll get to the burning questions of whether your dog (or cat) is an “it” or a “she” or "he" and whether you can talk about a table, Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing. Fowler also covers instances in which you have a human and an inanimate object together. World Wide Words tries to record at least a part of this shifting wordscape by featuring new words, word histories, words in the news, and the curiosities of native English speech. – In fact, ESL/EFL learners get a damn sight better grammar education than most native speakers. It's a popular grammar question and most folks want a quick rule of thumb so they can get it right. Sir, you are obviously teaching watered-down English is those courses and not the real thing. “I don’t like the kind of people that she hangs out with”. If you already know how to use these words, you can skip the explanation and go directly to the exercises. It simply makes it not in error. I am pretty strict about using “who” for people, though, while I find that many other people, mostly ESL-ers, use “that.” Maybe this is something from their native language, which either has no distinction, or always uses whatever their equivalent of “that” is. I repeat: there is a subordinate clause there, and it needs either a subordinating conjunction or a relative pronoun to introduce it. She is an inductee in the Podcasting Hall of Fame, and the show is a five-time winner of Best Education Podcast in the Podcast Awards. They are the type of people that would lie to their mothers. Second, the example “He’s the kind of doctor that volunteers at a clinic on his day off” and “I don’t like the kind of people that she hangs out with” implies that “that” and, later, “which” refers to “doctor” or “people.” That’s incorrect. One could just as easily say “I don’t like the kind that she hangs out with” or “He’s the kind that volunteers at a clinic on his day off.”. (However, if the subject is or was a human being, use "who" to introduce If you do an Ngram for “somebody who, somebody that” and “anybody who, anybody that”, you’ll see they were used equally in books until about 1830 (before the prescriptivists started sticking their fingers in to everything). In ‘I chose the card, which is blank,’ all we need to know is that the card was chosen; its quality of blankness is incidental.”. SO — RESULT; An action or a situation may also be followed by so + a clause that expresses result (effect). Hyphen, no hyphen, in this case because my nickname among some friends (actual and virtual) is spellchecker so I always write it that way. You said: “spellchecker, and it would correct every “that” to “which.”. sentence is correct if the reader intends to single out the one painting