That versus which | The parts of speech | Grammar | Khan Academy Video Lecture | Complete Course on English Grammar: Upgrade your Speaking & Listening - Personal Skills

hello grammarians we're going to talk
about that versus which but I would like
to start off by saying that in the study
of grammar there's basically this long
ongoing fight between two camps and it's
between the prescriptivists who believe
that language has concrete rules that
need to be abided by and the
descriptivists who also believe that
language has rules but see language as
more subject to change then the
prescriptivists would like now I find
myself to be right in between these two
camps which frequently makes me feel
like I want to stick out my hands and
say you guys stop fighting you're both
right all of this is to say that Brian
garner the prescriptive author of my
main usage manual Garner's modern
American usage is not a fan of the word
which he thinks it's ruined more
sentences than any other word in English
through its overuse on the other hand
Geoffrey Pullum one of the editors of my
descriptive Cambridge grammar of English
says this position of Garner's is utter
Buncombe and nonsense and that upon
review of the entire body of English
literature the rules about which and
that are largely made up this is why
it's so hard to get a good straight
answer to that verses which on the
internet because everyone is arguing at
once because half the people say that
there are definite rules and then half
the other people say the rules don't
matter dude but a prolonged study of
both camps has led me to determine that
there are distinctions in usage there is
a time to use that and a time to use
which from this entire argument from
these generations of just bickering
I have sussed out two distinctions
distinction one that is bad with commas
distinction two which is bad with people
so let's start with distinction number
one that that is bad with commas now
Brian garner says that most of the time
nine times out of ten in fact he says if
you want to use a relative pronoun and
you're trying to choose between that and
which you should probably use that and
if you the one time out of ten that you
do want to use which you're supposed to
use
, first so a comma which as in the
carrot which was orange was tasty
so you can write it that way with this
little common net but you can also write
it without as in the carrot which was
orange was tasty now the distinction
between these two sentences is the
distinction between non restrictive and
restrictive relative clauses because the
carrot comma which was orange comma was
tasty means that you could take out the
comma bracketed clause without changing
the meaning of the sentence the carrot
was tasty but the carrot no comma which
was orange no comma was tasty
yeah that which part is a restrictive
clause the fact that the carrot is
orange is essential to the sentence the
carrot which was orange was tasty
doesn't preclude the idea that there
might have been a non orange non tasty
carrot involved somewhere else however
if we try to use that in a non
restrictive way to say the carrot that
was orange was tasty it to me and to
other native English speakers that just
sounds a little weird it's not
ungrammatical per se there's nothing
about the word that or which that says
this is what it must be used for but of
all the combinations that could be made
using either which or that or commas or
not commas that with commas is the least
common and that is why to me as a
speaker and writer of standard American
English it doesn't look regular and to
try that once more without commas now we
have the carrot that was orange was
tasty and this is restrictive usage
again and this one works so number one
works number two works number three is
weird and number four is fine so the
distinction here is that that just
doesn't play well with commas that's
distinction number one okay so
distinction number two which is bad with
people so the way I like to remember
this is that I imagine a witch who does
not like other people so I just imagine
a kind of a cranky witch who lives all
alone in a house in the woods and
anytime someone comes up to her
house and asks her if she wants a
subscription to a magazine or does she
want to come over for dinner she says la
and she slams the door the which which
doesn't like people so the way this
shakes out is that which doesn't refer
to people and that can refer to anything
this is also really strange and it
betrays a prejudice in English toward
human beings check this out
to prove this let me throw some sentence
fragments at you the dog that I saw the
snow that fell the woman that boarded
the plane all of these are fine let's
try them again with which the dog which
I saw the snow which fell the woman
which boarded the plane now this to me
as a native speaker of English doesn't
sound right it should either be who or
that and again this isn't because of
some kind of rule of official grammar
this is just the way that the language
has shaken out which just doesn't have a
connotation of human beings so that's
the essential distinction that doesn't
like commas which is bad with people you
can learn anything Dave it out