Which versus that usage

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.

Which and that are common words, but they are important. By identifying your clauses as defining or non-defining, you can easily remember when to use which and when to use that.

If you are ready to learn more, study up on defining and non-defining clauses. But, now that I think about it, they are both wrong: the usage of a relative pronoun is wrong in the first place. The problem is, I am not able to pinpoint the reason why the usage of a relative pronoun is wrong in this sentence.

Could you please help me with this? Kat: Sorry for not giving a more normal example. How about this example, which is taken from a page in the US Census website:. Traditionally, publishers were considered to be authoratative, but lately a lot of newspapers have been very sloppy on their web sites.

To Precise Edit, concerning your April 17, post. I teach English Lit and Comp and have noticed a lot of confusion among my students in typing hyphens and dashes. The problem with this is that readers tend to see it as a compound word rather than your intended setting off of an interjected thought.

Jean: I looked at the source code for this page. It even looked like an en dash, as in Serbo-Croatian—English Dictionary. In German, an em dash is called a Gedankenstrich thought dash. They are easy to type on a Mac on all applications: Option-dash for en dash and Shift-Option-dash for em dash.

BTW, I just realized. I had always thought that 2 dashes meant em dash. Here is an attempt at 3 dashes—which I doubt will work. Actually, your that vs. Yes, ignorant: they either blindly assume the correctness of Latin grammar in the case of the two rules just mentioned , or notice a tendency but misinterpret it as in the case of your that vs. A more careful attention to the way good writers use that vs. The resemblance lies in the fact that non-restrictive relatives tend much more often to contain new information.

Exceptions can be found to this pattern of usage, since most people are not consciously aware of it, newness vs. But notice the following, which are just a few of the examples I have collected from good writers:. Wow this article was fantastic! After reading this, it is crystal clear! Thank you so much! This has helped me for my English midterm!

Other websites were so confusing, but this was straight to the point and student friendly. I was tempted to subsribe for basic english grammar after reading the clarification on that and which. Go on a which hunt. Or as a logician would say and formal logic is often used to clarify structural issues in semantics :. He really meant and with that and no comma corrected to say: Of all x such that x is at the same time a member of the deer family and lives in North America, … , moose and wapiti are the largest.

Whether to use that and which depends on whether the clause it introduces is restrictive or non-restrictive. A restrictive clause means that the information in the clause is necessary to understand the preceding noun.

For a restrictive clause, use that. Here, because not all laptops are used for gaming purposes, we use that to indicate the necessary information. Once again, this sentence indicates there are multiple chairs in the kitchen, making it important to include a restrictive clause.

Note that the restrictive clause does not necessarily need to be positioned immediately after the noun. This sort of clause is a non-restrictive clause.

There is one other important distinction between restrictive and non-restrictive clauses: commas are used to separate the non-restrictive clauses from the rest of the sentence. Therefore, we use which and separate the non-restrictive clause with commas. In this example, because all human hearts have four valves, the descriptive clause does not provide necessary identifying information to the sentence.

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TAGS: grammar. Do you use "which" and "that" as interchangeable words in sentences because they mean the same? That couldn't be further from the truth. We're here to help you determine when to use each word. Click here to try ProWritingAid for free now. Have you tried ProWritingAid yet? What are you waiting for? It's the best tool for making sure your copy is strong, clear, and error-free!

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Should I Use "Which" or "That"? Grammar Guide Learn everything you need to know about grammar. Improve your grammar. Log in to your account to leave a comment or fill in your details below to comment as a guest. You may want to reconsider using the word "nauseous" with the more appropriate word, "nauseated.

OK, I've been familiar with the distinction between essential and additional relative clauses for a long time.