That/Which

[Thomas Paikeday]

Here's a question that's beginning to bother me, though not as a normal linguistic phenomenon:

Why do writers drop "that/which" when the use of at least "that" would make the meaning clearer? The current tendency seems to be to modify the AP sentence thus:

"He said [note dropped "on"] Monday [drop "that"] the part of the army that [changed from "which"] suffered severe casualties needs reinforcement." Or, to use the classical example, "This is the house Jack built."

I'm dying for some expert comments on this trend.

About Microsoft Word and such online help, I think everyone knows that if one were to run a bit of "Queen's English" (or its American equivalent) through the style checker, the results would be disillusioning.

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Frank Abate wrote:

> In partial response to Fred S's query, I can say that I was taught, when learning (on the job) to be an editor, to use "that" instead of "which" for so-called restrictive (traditional term) or essential (AP Stylebook term) clauses.  The exception is only when "that" is used as a conjunction introducing another clause in the same sentence, where "which" is then OK (e.g., from AP: "He said Monday that the part of the army which suffered severe casualties needs reinforcement").
> >
> > Here's a question that has bothered me for years:  Why are American
> > copyeditors so absolutely insistent on using "that" where the British use
> > "which" and so many of the best American writers through the years have
> > used "which"?  This usage should be called "the copyeditor's that."
> >
> > If anyone can shed light on the history and rationale, if there is any,
> > for this obsession, I would be most grateful.
> >
> >
> > Fred R. Shapiro                             Coeditor (with Jane Garry)
> > Associate Librarian for Public Services     TRIAL AND ERROR: AN OXFORD
> >   and Lecturer in Legal Research            ANTHOLOGY OF LEGAL STORIES
> > Yale Law School                             Oxford University Press, 1998
> > e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               ISBN 0-19-509547-2
>