On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 09:35:36 -0800, Miss Elaine Eos
<Misc@*your-shoes*PlayNaked.com> wrote:
> In article <slrnd0p5dl.psf.chris@ccserver.keris.net>,
> Chris Croughton <chris@keristor.net> wrote:
>
>> >> "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?
>> >
>> > Not "those." "That" works, as does "which." Which may be more formal.
>>
>> Nice ambiguity there <g>. Did you mean "The word 'which' may be more
>> formal", or was it a continuation of the previous sentence and meant
>> "The latter may be more formal"? Of course, in this case the meaning is
>> identical, which to me makes it even more amusing as a play on words...
>
> Well, I thought I clarified that with my [mis-] use of quotes, but
> better probably would have been:
>
>> Not "those." "That" works, as does "which", which may be more formal.
Yes, the use of 'which' to start the third sentence was ambiguous
(Fowler [1998] points out that the ose of 'which' to start a sentence is
becoming more common in speech) because the word 'which' was also the
subject of the discussion.
> Nice spot on the unintentional word-play... :)
I used to be Master of Puns when I was at university <g>...
(Actually, my preference for 'correct' English, including my dislike of
dangling prepositions, is largely because my inbuilt parser is not very
sophisticated, causing it to reject ambiguities so that I have to do a
full parse of the sentence. This means that I detect ambiguities and
see puns and other wordplay, as well as spotting typographical and other
errors. Except when I make the errors myself, because in that case I
know what I meant to write...)
Chris C
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