Grammar
Rules Get Bad Rap
By Beth
Vollbach, Signature Copy Editor
A lot of editors quibble about grammar rules; they don't think there should be any. But I want to mention some grammar rules, anyhow, and I invite dissenters to e-mail Signature at stcsignature@yahoo.com.
First of
all, there is a difference between that and which. That
should be used to introduce a restrictive clause, and which should
be used to introduce a nonrestrictive clause. Mixing up that and
which can lead to misunderstanding.
For example,
if I say, "The drain which Keith unplugged worked well," you
might wonder whether I meant, "The drain, which Keith unplugged,
worked well" (i.e., the drain worked well, and Keith unplugged it).
Or I might mean, "The drain that Keith unplugged worked well"
(i.e., someone else tried to unplug that drain and didn't do such a good
job).
My theory
is that the that versus which rule is confused a lot partly
because it is American. People forget or never realized that what's acceptable
in European English isn't in American English. Or they may know that Europeans/Canadians
spell some words differently, e.g., they spell program programme.
But they so often read books published in England or Canada that they
get used to their style and don't realize American style is different.
Another example is the use of "an historic." Americans would correctly say "a historic," but many (most, I think) Americans think "an historic" is right. Remember this rule: use an before vowel sounds and a before consonant sounds. We Americans pronounce the h.
