Happy Birthday, Henry Fowler: inventor of that/which rule is 150 on Monday, March 10

[Mark Mandel]

BTW, am I the only one for whom most of the lines of this post, and many
others, end in "=20"? I presume it is some program's unhelpful indication of
an inserted line break after a space (ASCII x20).

m a m

On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 1:25 AM, Dennis Baron <debaron at uiuc.edu> wrote:

> There's a new post on the Web of Language --
>
> Happy Birthday, Henry Fowler: inventor of that/which rule is 150 on =20
> Monday, March 10
>
> March 10, 2008, is the 150th birthday of Henry Watson Fowler, high =20
> school Latin teacher, lexicographer, and author of the Dictionary of =20
> Modern English Usage (1926), the most important book on English usage =20=
>
> of the 20th century (sorry Strunk and White, you lose hands down).
>
> So here=92s my e-card to the man who single-handedly invented the =20
> difference between that and which and convinced thousands of copy =20
> 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=92t given the that/=20
> which rule on Mt. Sinai. Quite the opposite: he insisted that =93the =20
> relations between that, who, & which have come to us from our =20
> forefathers as an odd jumble, & plainly show that the language has =20
> not been neatly constructed by a master-builder=94 (Modern English =20
> Usage, 1926, that, s.v.; I=92m not going to recount Fowler=92s rule =
> here, =20
> because it=92s too complicated, requiring a discussion of restrictive =20=
>
> and nonrestrictive clauses that=92s not particularly entertaining).
>
> So Fowler decided to improve this jumble because, as he put it, =93the
> =20=
>
> temptation to show how better use might have been made of the =20
> material to hand is sometimes irresistible.=94....
> 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
>
> office: 217-244-0568
> fax: 217-333-4321
>
> www.uiuc.edu/goto/debaron

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