ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

Spinix from the ashes

Fat finger salute

Oh yeah I had a question the other day, how do people feel about the word “distaff”?

I think 18c English novelists were right about "that" and "which" and "the which" and "but that" all being essentially musical choices and that the post 18c copyeditor standardization of the rules on this question has been bad for prose. attend ye to the music which causeth your numbers to sing mark s

Asking for a friend because I just remembered a long ago somewhat amusing incident of someone we know being asked to remove it by a newspaper of record.
(xp)

The rule I know comes from Harry Fieldhouse's Everyman's Good English Guide:

The need or lack of need for a comma is a convenient test of whether the sense requires that or which.

He goes on to say:

If the pronoun can be left out altogether the matter is clinched in favour of that (though that cannot always be omitted) - There's the shop window (that) I told you about.

strongly prefer "there's the shop window, the one I was telling you about, not sure if you remember"

This is looser in the UK, I think. I had restrictive/nonrestrictive drilled into my head in journalism school but I am not doctrinaire about it in casual speech and informal writing.

"A date which will live in infamy" violates the rule, but I don't much care.

which is a building

which is on fire

I don't use "distaff" and don't think it works well anymore because its root sense is about women's proper role being domestic (specifically spinning/weaving)

the person who introduced me to distaff was a canadian cyberpunk feminist who entirely used it not to be taken seriously so

I don't think, after all this time, that I grasp the which / that distinction.

Somewhat happily it appears that other people aren't bothered about it either.

Meanwhile, separately: Guardian style, almost always omitting 'that' as a conjunction, often creates inelegance and confusion. I would never do this myself, given a choice. (If I wrote for the Guardian presumably they would muck up my writing, but I don't have that honour.)

oh i take "that" out of my own copy like crazy, it saves a word in tight word-counts!

and other ppl's also lol

Feel like "which" has a subordinating function, "that" is kind of a determiner that (do u see?) can often be omitted.

Much of 20th century newspaper style decisions had to do with space, and almost always erred on the side of omission / conciseness when there was a choice to be made.

Hence the AP rejection of serial commas, hence the rule forbidding forms of "to be in headlines," hence a preference for closed compounds.

By 1995 or 2000, there really was no reason for this. Even if the internet had not been emerging, DTP software and inexpensive paper would still have allowed print outlets to use all the space they needed.

The old listserv COPYEDITING-L had an injoke about being a HARPy ("hyphens are readers' pals"). HARPies tended to resist concision for concision's sake, and advocated for using more ink when doing so aided clarity.

My own style tends toward more words, rather than fewer. I leave in a lot of "thats" that a more terse stylist would delete.

Like that one ^

So Peter Seller's-almost mother-in-law Judy Garland sang about "The Man I Love," which (do u see?) could have been "The Man That I Love" if George and Ira had wanted another syllable, but not "The Man, Which I Love" or even "The Manwhich, I Love," which (do u see?) of course would be "The Man, Who(m) I Love." In the first case, she is narrowing it down to which (uh oh, so confusing) man she loves, in the second case, we presumably already know who this man is, and she is giving us the extra info that she loves him.

Not to be confused with "The Magwitch" as in
"The Magwitch," that new viral dance hit from Sir Carol Reed's cult film adaptation of "Pip!," playing every other Saturday at midnight, alternating with "The Rocky Horror Picture Show"...

or
"The Magwitch," which was not even in the original theatrical version....

Except in this case the first "that" could have been "the." Ugh, the confusion is coming from inside the "that!"

This one goes out to the one which I love

Meanwhile, separately: Guardian style, almost always omitting 'that' as a conjunction, often creates inelegance and confusion. I would never do this myself, given a choice.

"Which girl?"
"That girl!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zoh1LGADKI8

This seems useful:
https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/formandstyle/writing/grammarmechanics/that
https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/formandstyle/writing/scholarlyvoice/that

And another link to the same site seems to indicate "that" being used in restrictive clauses and "which" in nonrestrictive, which (Out, damned "which!") I think is what I was trying to get at before.

https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/formandstyle/writing/grammarmechanics/clauses#s-lg-box-18085140

Anyway, good posts all around, from YMP and others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Pr36CANB04

Friend sez: which after a comma. Simple rule.

But commas are not a reliable feature -- editors often remove commas from my own copy.

Reading posts here, I note that people tend to use terms which, or that, are standard to them, but are unknown technical terms to me, so I unfortunately glaze over again.

eg:

"that" being used in restrictive clauses and "which" in nonrestrictive

Have never heard of such clauses.

Ditto

"which" has a subordinating function, "that" is kind of a determiner

I don't know these either.

I could look them up but would get lost and would not remember it.

The second example you give was me flailing but the first seems to be using real terms.

Restrictive clause introduces essential information.

This is American usage though. I just saw something that says for British usage “that” and “which” are “equally acceptable” in restrictive clauses.

https://link.medium.com/ZCncpIUOCmb

Precisely. It's not observed in the UK.

It's extremely important to a small (and ever-diminishing) number of US pedants. I only care about it when the person signing my paycheck cares.

The terms "restrictive" and "nonrestrictive" are the correct technical terms, and I wish I could explain it without using them but it's tough.

Maybe try something like "the second house on the block, which has blue shutters, is my house" vs. "the second house on the block that has blue shutters is my house."

In the first example I live in the third house on the block. The shutter color is just extra information about it (nonrestrictive, set off with a comma).

In the second example, I might live in the fourth or fifth house on the block (because the other ones have different-colored shutters). It's essential information (restrictive, not set off with a comma).

But that feels really artificial because you would almost always find a better way to convey the information - like giving the address.

One of these days I'll find a way to explain this that doesn't feel so abstract and forced.

Crud even that is botched - in the first example I live in the SECOND house. Dangit. Again, some day I'll explain this clearly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z4LNBq3WxE

I was tempted to ask my high school English teacher this question on Facepalm but then I thought better of it. Although yesterday I did ask a question about James Joyce to which I already knew the answer and he took the bait. Tempted to ask the pinefox while he is here as well, but don’t want to make the thread a busman’s holiday.

Agree with Ye Mad Puffin: "that" is technically correct, but it's not an important distinction in casual speech or writing. And if you're phrasing your thread title "Old-timey pictures of the sphinx ____ are terrible" rather than "terrible old-timey pictures of the sphinx," you're clearly going for a stylistic flourish that I would leave as-is.

Yeah and I also think the "which is a building which is on fire" is deliberately stylized. Some folks use which because it sounds loftier even when it's wrong. I suspect FDR was just under the influence of British writers (including Churchill, a rampant whicher).

As noted, I have almost no strong personal feelings but I sometimes work for people who do. Because I like paying the mortgage and feeding my children, I generally just adopt the preferences of whoever is approving my timesheet and/or signing my check.

If I may, isn't it also a matter of knowing what the rules are and knowing when to break or ignore them? In your case, at least.

YMP, what kind of editing do you do? I only really got a grasp on that vs which when I learned AMA style.

yeah the editing I do these days is almost all academic writing, so I am something of a stickler about this, as it's gradually felt more "natural" for me to differentiate. Also academic writing tends to be larded with thats and whichs so it's just easier if I'm more or less systematic about it; like mark s I also enjoy deleting thats wherever possible

I appreciate Ye Mad Puffin's efforts in giving the example, though I don't find the terms (restrictive & non) very intuitive here.

Lily Dale's observation - 'you're clearly going for a stylistic flourish' - was a shrewd reminder of a point easily forgotten from the original prompt.

I think there is a distinction here between cases where it's clear and intuitive which, yes, *which* word of the two to use (that would be one, as would YMP's example) -- and ... others when it isn't. I begin to think that in those specific cases where either feels or sounds correct, either is correct. But perhaps not.

I wonder what James Redd's James Joyce question was, though it may be perilous to do so.

"Restrictive" as in it is being used to restrict what is being discussed, from a larger set to a singleton, usually or maybe at least a smaller subset.

My question was a softball and was relevant to the calendar date, which I don't think anybody got. I pretended not to recall the literary device Joyce said he used for each story in Dubliners, where each person had expenienced some kind of awareness, some moment of clarity etc, what was it again? *scratches head*

I looked in the Chicago Manual's word usage section and Garner's argument for the distinction isn't that it's correct but that it's useful. He also notes that British English doesn't recognize the distinction, so yes there's no "rule" like subject-verb agreement at play.

I would push back a little on the idea that intuitiveness should matter (in terms of application; I appreciate that non/restrictive isn't super easy to graps) here--intuition can easily lead you astray in grammar.

lol *grasp

https://www2.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/styles/full/public/image/dr-strangelove-1963-024-custard-pie-fight-00n-6w7.jpg?itok=q2-v8I8b
Gentlemen, please! No fighting typos in the War RoomGrammar Fiend thread!

joke's on you, this was supposed to be the Grammar Friends thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwQJC_hk_xs

Altough what I was actually looking for
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lae8FewbnuU

table, these days I work mostly in technical proposal writing. In past lives I have grazed through the worlds of newspapers, trade newsletters, association and nonprofit communications, PR / advertising, sales, marketing. The only constant is needing to pay the bills.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaU1J8KMWbY

This discussion has accumulated so many responses I'll need to load the entire thread to find out exactly that which is being discussed.