Re: facts v. history; which and that

On Mon, April 27, 1998, Robert Cumbow <cumbr[_at_]perkinscoie.com> wrote:
>
> Steve Jamar <sjamar[_at_]law.howard.edu> wrote:
> >
> > There is never a loss of meaning by incorrect usage of that or which.
>
> I beg to differ. Consider:
>
> "The room had one window that overlooked the parking lot."
>
> versus
>
> "The room had one window, which overlooked the parking lot."
>
> The first sentence means that the room may have had several windows and
> one of them overlooked the parking lot. The second sentence means that
> the room had only one window, and it overlooked the parking lot. If we
> accept the interchangeability of "which" and "that", then we finally do
> not know what either sentence means for sure. I call that a loss of
> meaning---as well as an impoverishment of our once-rich language.

Thank you for that wonderful example. I HATE seeing which when the word should be that, but I've never had such a vivid way of illustrating to people why the distinction matters.

Jamie Bischoff
<bischoff[_at_]ballardspahr.com> Received on Tue Apr 28 1998 - 19:29:52 GMT