on “which/that” police

In the English language, of course, we have nothing resembling the French Academy– no official body that votes on instituting or abolishing grammar rules. It’s more of a Wild West for speakers of English, proceeding by way of rough consensus.

However, if something is stated by the people at the Oxford English Dictionary, we all tend to listen. And to the extent to which I’ve been following their proclamations (only loosely, I must admit) they seem to have been softening up and allowing things that used to be considered appalling. I happen to have been in favor of most of the changes.

But one grammatical point that’s always annoyed me is “which/that” fascism. Reading a fine stylist like Gibbon, it is clear that he uses those words pretty much as he pleases. During my first year in graduate school, however, a worried professor told us that we needed to be careful to use those two words correctly, though he admitted to not knowing the rule, except for the memorized formula: “when in doubt, use ‘that’.” Over my remaining student years, I continued to encounter red ink directed against my generally loose use of the words as almost interchangeable. So I looked it up in Fowler’s classic book on English usage, and the usually witty and convincing Fowler let me down in this case– he simply made fun of those who use the words interchangeably, but obviously without having an ironclad reason or even rule.

I learned the current rule years ago, and try observe it, but only in order to avoid the hassle of red ink. The result is as follows: the uglier word “that” is now used disproportionately in comparison with the more pleasant-sounding “which.” But until the police calm down (help us, OED, if you haven’t already) I will keep obeying the traffic laws as they have evolved.

But I hate writing these sorts of posts, in case they sound even remotely like those “purist” columns on language written by pedantic older ex-Ivy league journalists for Sunday newspapers.

However, I do have a general point of interest to make here. There is too much concern with precision in language, and not enough concern with versatility. Why on earth does there need to be one specific case where “which” is appropriate and another where “that” is correct? Aren’t we better off having two different-sounding words filling the same function, so that we can choose the one that sounds nicer in each case?

I feel the same way about philosophical terminology. Sometimes there is too much concern with specifically defining each word with utter precision and differentiating it from its neighboring words. This fails to notice that having a palette of synonyms allows for freshness and variety each time we return to a theme.

And this leads me again to remember one of my all-time annoyances: sarcastic remarks about redundancy. If you call someone a “stupid idiot,” you can always be sure that someone else nearby will sardonically ask: “as opposed to a smart idiot?”

No, as opposed simply to an “idiot.”

To say “stupid idiot” is obviously to intensify the noun, not to qualify or specify it.

Sorry, I don’t mean to sound like the Gen-X version of William Safire.