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All of you self-proclaimed pedantics - I need your help and discussion about one of the most confusing four letter words in the English language - that.

Specifically...I have been told and have also read in various places that the use of the word "that" is in most instances unnecessary. Problem is, I find myself using "that" all the time! So much, in fact, I often do a find-and-replace on my stories to see if I can't remove quite a few of them. Problem is, I never seem to want to remove them because they seem necessary.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? And while you're at it, can someone explain to me when you would use "which" instead of "that"?

I'm hoping for some help - maybe someone who tells me it's okay to use "that" as much as I want.

Lynn

Ah, Lynn...

Alas and alack, I can't help you. But I certainly can sympathise. I think I use less thats than I used to but I have to say that I sympathise wholeheartedly with the idea that 'that' might be overused in ways that are frequently unnecessary.

In other words, I also have to go through my writing and remove the offending words.

As for the whole 'which' and 'that' thing... I confess. I'm not a genius with a natural aptitude for grammar. Instead I tend hope for the best (and I even am sometimes reduced to using the grammar checker, but don't tell anyone).

Chris

I *know* that, but I'm not sure I can make it sound clear. Let's give it a shot:

Say you want to add some additional information on something. If you're putting the additional information between commas, you use "which". If not, you use "that", or nothing at all. The rule is that "that" and commas don't go together.

Examples:

a) The gift (that) Clark gave me was very nice.
b) The gift, which Clark gave me, was very nice.

Hope I've helped a little!
AnnaBtG.

Oh, me, me, me! I'm always deleting, reinserting and then re-deleting 'that'. Did one just a few minutes ago, in fact:

Original version: "What if she knows that he's having an affair with you?"

New version: "What if she knows he's having an affair with you?"

And a few paras further up:

Original: "He's always been terrified that people will find out that he's not human."

New: "He's always been terrified that people will find out he's not human."

I suppose I tend to delete them when I've got more than one in a sentence.

The other construct I'm always trying to avoid is "It had been." Too often, that's how the sentence forms in my head, and then I have to get creative to say the same thing in a more direct way.

As for 'which' and 'that' - I can't help you with the rules, but I do think 'which' sounds more formal and is less likely to be used in speech than 'that'.

Yvonne

From what I can tell, Lynn, 'that' is used more frequently in US writing than in UK. In UK English, the sort of construction Yvonne used is very common; eg, if I wrote something like this:

a US GE would tell me that I need to have 'that' between 'know' and 'he's'. In fact, I've just realised that in UK English construction (ie before my writing became so heavily influenced by writing for a predominantly North American readership) I would have omitted the 'that' in what I typed above after 'US GE': I would just have written:

It's a 'short-cut' thing - 'that' is grammatically correct, but we tend to omit it some of the time and, since the meaning is clear without it, it's accepted as okay.

And I just looked up one of my favourite grammar sites, Charles Darling's guide (which I've recommended in this folder before) and found his commentary on \'that\' omitted , which says pretty much what I thought.

As for that/which, this is an area where UK and US grammar rules do differ. Lynne Truss's Eats, Shoots and Leaves discusses 'that' and 'which', as far as I recall. Charles Darling's grammar guide has a page on the distinction between that/which. He points out that 'which' can be used for both restrictive and unrestrictive clauses (explanation given on the page! ) but, as far as I know, many US grammarians prefer to use 'that' for unrestrictive clauses, not 'which'. In the UK it's much more common for 'which' to be used for both.


Hope this helps! And do bookmark Charles Darling\'s site - it's one of the most helpful and user-friendly around.


Wendy

Thanks, you guys. This is very, very helpful.

I'm most definitely going to bookmark that site, Wendy. And read it thoroughly. Eats, Shoots and Leaves is on my Christmas wish list.

Anna - I like your bare-bones explanation of how to decide when to use "that" versus "which". Makes a lot of sense.

I'm going to try to eliminate the word as frequently as I can and work on training myself to try to skip it whenever possible.

More discussion is welcome. Has anyone else ever been told not to use "that"? Or how about any other words?

Lynn

I second Anna's explanation. I remember asking a friend this question many years back and that was basically her answer. The commas make the difference, apparently.

The discussion on that is very interesting - considering that I'm exactly the opposite of most posters. I'm forever missing it out and having to consciously work to put it back in.

LabRat

I think in the US we use "that" to emphasize a word or idea.

An example in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is - the purest water is that produced by distillation.

When you could say the purest water is produced by distillation.

They both are correct but the first puts more emphasis on distillation.

I'm not very good at writing. I have a hard time fleshing out stories. However, I did take a creative writing class and the teacher said to write as you would talk. Most people try to write the perfect story or the perfect sentence. In trying to do this we come off sounding stilted. I find it absolutely true. I start putting in extra words like that, which and not sounding like myself at all.

So for the writers who are confused by words like those, which or any other word, you have my sympathy. Maybe some day I will be able to flesh out a story enough to post. In the meantime -