THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 29, 1997 TAG: 9701290001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A13 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: Glenn Allen Scott
LENGTH: 86 lines
A reader wonders, more in puzzlement than in pique, why the person who edited his letter for publication - and I am the culprit - changed the relative pronoun which to that in one of his sentences.
That is a fair question.
So were his next questions: Didn't the alteration in the text also alter the voice of the writer? Shouldn't a writer of a letter to the editor be permitted to speak in his own voice?
Besides, the reader had asked a professor of English what word authorities had to say about that or which in his sentence. Her citations from word-usage manuals suggested to him that his use of which was grammatically correct, which it was, and possibly superior to the substituted that, which was also correct.
The professor had speculated that the editor was following a rule in The Associated Press Stylebook, which I was. The Stylebook prefers the relative pronoun that for essential clauses (usually called defining or restrictive clauses), and which for nonessential clauses.
Of these clauses, the Stylebook says:
``Both types of clauses provide additional information about a word or phrase in the sentence.
``The difference between them is that the essential clause cannot be eliminated without changing the meaning of the sentence - it so restricts the meaning of the word or phrase that its absence would lead to a substantially different interpretation of what the author meant.
``The nonessential clause, however, can be eliminated without altering the basic meaning of the sentence - it does not restrict the meaning so significantly that its absence would radically alter the author's thought.''
The clause in the sentence at issue was an essential clause. The Stylebook says further:
``USE OF WHO, THAT, WHICH: When an essential or nonessential clause refers to a human being or animal with a name, it should be introduced by who or whom. (See who, whom entry.) Do not use commas if the clause is essential to the meaning; use them if it is not.
``That is the preferred pronoun to introduce clauses that refer to an inanimate object or an animal without a name. Which is the only acceptable pronoun to introduce a nonessential clause that refers to an inanimate object or an animal without a name.
``The pronoun which occasionally may be substituted for that in the introduction of an essential clause that refers to an inanimate object, or an animal without a name. In general, this use of which should appear only when that is used as a conjunction to introduce another clause in the same sentence: He said Monday that the part of the army which suffered severe casualties needs reinforcement.''
The curmudgeonly Henry Watson Fowler, whose Modern English Usage was the British Empire's guide for good writing when Britain had an empire, would approve the AP's advice on that and which, for that was Fowler's advice. An excerpt from his treatment of the topic:
``that, rel. pron. . . . 1. That & which. The two kinds of relative clause, to one of which that & to the other of which which is appropriate, are the defining and non-defining. . . . If writers would agree to regard that as the defining relative pronoun, & which as the non-defining, there would be much gain both in lucidity & in ease.''
Something about the use of that and which stirs the juices of grammarians. Sir Ernest Gowers, writes in his Complete Plain Words: ``On the whole it makes for smoothness of writing not to use the relative which where that would do as well, and not to use either if a sentence makes sense and runs pleasantly without.''
Writes Roy H. Copperud in his Dictionary of Style and Usage: ``Usage and grammarians alike agree that that should be used to introduce only restrictive clauses. Nonrestrictive clauses, as we have seen, are set off by commas; restrictive ones are not. Save that to introduce restrictive clauses. Which is all right with either kind, but is preferred with the nonrestrictive.
But if which is acceptable either way, why not leave it alone in a letter to the editor? Why did I change it?
Reflex. For more years than I would readily acknowledge, the letters-editing chore fell to me. I had been given it by an exacting editor whose rule for letters was succinct and clear. ``Letters,'' he said, ``should read as well as anything else in the newspaper.'' That meant editing them to conform with newspaper style - ``10 o'clock in the morning,'' for example, ``would become ``10 a.m.''
The Virginian-Pilot editorial department receives - by FAX, Postal Service and e-mail - roughly 800 letters to the editor each year; a fourth are published. Public editor Lynn Feigenbaum is also letters editor, but editorial page editor Keith Monroe and I lend a hand on occasion. MEMO: Mr. Scott is associate editor of the editorial page of The
Virginian-Pilot.