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From: Chris Croughton <chris@keristor.net>
Newsgroups: alt.languages.english
Subject: Re: Looking for appropriate world
Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 12:10:52 +0000
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On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 19:39:35 -0800, Jack Hamilton
<jfh@acm.org> wrote:
> "I. R. Khan" <ir_khan@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> I guess it depends on the context. You might say "turn South on I-280,
>>> then follow the signs to the Winchester Mystery House." I think when
>>> talking ABOUT the signs, they're just "signs", but when refering to the
>>> signs,
>>> they're "roadsigns". So you might say "my, the roadsigns around here sure
>>> are confusing", but "I didn't have any trouble following the signs to
>>> get to your house."
>>
>>Thanks again. I want to write something like this:
>>
>>"In a graphics application, the roadsigns THAT offer directions are
>>generally represented by an image file. To reduce the size of data, we will
>>represent these signs by a small text file and a single color."
>>
>>Is the usage of THAT correct, or should it be THOSE or WHICH?
>
> I would say that "offer directions" is a restrictive clause and requires
> "that", not "which". See
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictive_clause>.
That article itself says that this is not a universal rule. Fowler's
"Modern English Usage" (I quote from the Third Edition, 1998) says that
in restrictive clauses either 'that' or 'which' can be used with no
change of meaning whereas in non-restrictive clauses only 'which' can be
used (Fowler himself, in 1926, calls the two types 'defining' and
'non-defining'). Partridge, in "Usage and Abusage" [1972], seems to
come down more heavily in favour of 'which' although he too states that
the two can be interchangable in restrictive clauses.
> "Those" would be OK; it has a slightly different meaning to me, but I'm
> not sure I can explain what the difference is.
'Those' is definitely incorrect in the example:
"In a graphics application, the roadsigns those offer directions..."
This is neither correct nor in my experience colloqial use of English in
the sense used (a different meaning, "... the roadsigns to whom [or to
which] those offer directions..." could be colloquially used providing
'those' had a plural antecedenct, but that is not the case here).
Chris C
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