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From: anderson@uwmacc.UUCP (Jess Anderson)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: which vs. that
Message-ID: <541@uwmacc.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 20-Nov-86 09:06:14 EST
Article-I.D.: uwmacc.541
Posted: Thu Nov 20 09:06:14 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 20-Nov-86 22:47:02 EST
References: <16381@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <217@mind.UUCP> <2363@ecsvax.UUCP>
Organization: UWisconsin Madison Academic Comp Center
Lines: 45
Summary: "Style" and "Good" not the same ...

In article <2363@ecsvax.UUCP>, unbent@ecsvax.UUCP (Jay F. Rosenberg) writes:
> [...]  Since 'that' does journeyman work as a demonstrative pronoun and as a
> subordinating conjunction, I (a philosopher, whose professional interests
> often require special attention to those grammatical roles) have developed a
> style in which 'which' tends, fairly generally, to replace 'that' in its
> additional relative pronoun role.  By "developed a style" I mean that I
> write in such a way that the sentences not only convey what I wish them to
> convey but also *sound* right.  Such considerations, however, are simply
> lost on copy editors, whose horizons, as far as I can determine,
> characteristically extend no further than Webster's, Fowler's, and their own
> publishers' style sheets.

Sounds like a man with a mission to me. There are copy editors and copy
editors, and doubtless some have horizons limited as you describe. But
perhaps you are overlooking the obvious: what sounds right might not be
right. On the which/that matter, and long after I had begun to have
copy-editing as one of my professional activities, I had it approximately
backwards, as it *sounded* wrong to me to do it the other way round. But,
encouraged by a colleague (you know, one of those wild, flaming arguments
such as can only be fueled by a difference of opinion about "what's
right") I looked in a dictionary for guidance. I used the American
Heritage. Now as we all know, there is no official body akin to the
Academie francaise for English (for which thank god, in my opinion)
that decides what is currently correct pro forma. So we have to make
our own decisions, using such guides as may be available. I earnestly
believe that the guides you find fault with (there are many other
valuable ones) serve you and all other authors well, that is, better
than you think. The end purpose, after all, is consistently clear
communication. Naturally, that does not mean mindless homogenizing
of individual styles. But in certain basic features of the language,
some normative tendencies confer definite advantages. I believe the
current canon on which/that (apparently opposite to your own style)
is one of these. A final note: philosophy was one of my undergraduate
majors, and I find a *far* higher incidence of 'which' that should be
'that' in scholarly prose, especially philosophy, history, and
literary criticism, than in technical, journalistic, or other domains.
Nothing personal intended, but I think there's an academic snobbism
at work in the topic area, perhaps not in your case, but it's hard
to imagine why this problem occurs more often (if in fact it does)
in academic circles. [Oh oh, now I'm going to get some heat!]
-- 
==ARPA:====================anderson@unix.macc.wisc.edu===Jess Anderson======
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