- By Jim Evans
- Entertainment
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By Dr. Will S. Sert
THAT and WHICH: At the Institute for the Linguistically Impaired, we teach the difference between that and which as an advanced series of sessions. We usually use Strunk Hall, which houses our auditorium, because this is a point of grammar that schools seem unable to instill.
To the assembled multitude, we first offer a mnemonic device: “No naked whiches.” This means, of course that they must have clothes, meaning, in this case, commas. Any series of words starting with “which” must have a comma before “which” and a comma or end punctuation after it. See the example in the first paragraph.
If you don’t pause as if you’re thinking of parentheses around the words, then don’t insert commas, and use “that.” Again, see the example in the first paragraph.
In technical language, “which” begins an independent clause, requiring the extra punctuation, and “that” begins a dependent clause, but you don’t need to know that.
Logical thinking may help, because your choice of “that” or “which” can change the meaning of what you say. “I saw five cars that were rusty go by” means you watched some traffic, and five of the cars were rusty.
“I saw five cars, which were rusty, go by” means that you saw exactly five cars go by, all of them rusty. See? It makes a difference.
Ironically, the English are particularly weak at keeping this straight and tend to use “which” nakedly to an embarrassing degree. I feel bad for them.
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