from The Grammar Girl
While we're on the subject of things I didn't learn in school, also see The Grammar Vandal's Everything's More Erroneous in Texas.
Actually, I am perfectly capable of spelling "authorized" and "personnel." Don't know when and where I learned how, but I can handle it.
What I cannot spell is flokati.
Scratch that.
What I could not spell in last February's spelling bee was flokati. My team decided to go with floccati.
Another way to decide between "that" vs. "which" is to say the sentence out loud and see if it's natural to pause first. "which" follows a pause (and, typically, a slight rise in pitch); "that" doesn't. (An exception is "That which", as in "that which seems hardest is...", but here we only use "which" because "that that" is so awkward).
ReplyDeleteSpeech melody/rhythm can also guide punctuation questions like comma (rising pitch) vs. period (drop in pitch).
Indeed, it seems to me that melody/rhythm is an under-appreciated resource for precision with written language.
And, vice versa, if you teach a child how punctuation should guide their intonation when reading aloud, for reading comprehension.