more on "which" and "that"

[Wilson Gray]

I go back to the early '40's, when the only kind of rule known was the
prescriptive rule, since we were all colored children who, from the
fourth grade on, were taught a foreign language that we called
"Ang-lish," as opposed to our native tongue, Merican [mE:k at n], whose
use was suppressed, in the classroom, at least, if not on the
playground.Yet, I am in complete agreement with arnold, Doug, and MW.
As is the case with most of us, I had never heard of this nonsensical
prescriptive "which/that" rule until I read about it in Safire.

-Wilson Gray

On 5/10/05, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas at nb.net> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
> Subject:      Re: more on "which" and "that"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I am rather surprised that educated and otherwise apparently respectable
> persons who actually hold jobs involving writing are promulgating this
> 'rule'. I never heard this 'rule' during my school days; I was taught
> explicitly that non-restrictive "which" usually has a comma and that
> restrictive "which" usually does not (which is natural based on speech
> rhythm anyway IMHO); I suppose I'd read enough even by junior high school
> to know that any 'rule' against restrictive "which" is bogus, but the issue
> never arose. I was mystified for some time in the late 1990's by the
> Microsoft grammar-checker flagging my restrictive "which" here and there;
> when I figured out what was happening I wrote it off to post-literacy among
> the, uh, experts writing the database. But now I suppose enough time has
> passed that even the, uh, editors are post-literate in many cases.
>
> I'm with Arnold and the M-W folks, of course.
>
> -- Doug Wilson
>


--
-Wilson Gray