Subject: Re: Words, words, words
From: Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Date: Mon Jan 24 2000 - 15:04:01 EST
On Mon, Jan 24, 2000 at 01:50:05PM -0500, Paul Kennedy wrote:
> Well, I was going to chide Tim for choosing Fowler over Strunk & White....
Oh, I tried to make it plain a while back that the Strunk & White is
virtually glued to my computer. (I even have an original copy of the
Strunk "little book" that was privately printed and used at Cornell,
bought from a bookseller who had no idea of the value of the gem.)
I just happened to be reading Fowler's (I love to pick a spot and read
it, just for fun; strange, I know. Even the introduction to the second
edition indicates that some passages have to be read as closely as
Finance Law statutes!)
> and then Cecilia chipped in with her paean of praise.
Yes, thanks, Cecilia!
> respect words. The first paragraph of CATCHER is a masterful example of a
> literary genius stretching the language to incorporate the diction of a
> mid-20th century teenager. But it's literate from top to tail. If it had
> ignored punctuation (as seems to be sadly becoming the norm) nobody would be
> reading the novel today.
That frames the beginning of the book in about as crystalline a form as
I could ever imagine.
> PS--But if ANYBODY can explain Fowler's convoluted explication of "which"
> and "that", I'd be grateful....
Oh, dear ... that is one of my favorite essays in the book. I think he
was pun-mad when writing it. It's droll to the nth degree.
For "that" and "which," I have a five-year-old's approach, like counting
on my fingers, which I also, to my great chagrin, do, even sometimes if
only in my head.
That / Which. Here's my thinking about it -- how I came up with a quick
solution to remembering them without getting entangled in Fowler's
definition.
"That" is alphabetically before "which." So I, with my five-year-old
head, envision the words, "essential" and "non-essential."
To use "that," what follows is essential to the meaning of the
sentence: "Everybody shot something. I shot the dog that was foaming at
the mouth." One specific dog is the subject of that sentence; other
dogs, those not foaming at the mouth, might be present but are
eliminated from consideration.
To use "which," you can eliminate the subordinate clause and still have
a working sentence that makes logical sense: "Everybody shot something.
I shot the dog, which was foaming at the mouth." In this case, we're
only talking about one dog, and tacking on an explanation for why we
shot him; there's usually but not always a comma in front of "which."
(I'm not saying you need help remembering it, Paul. <*grin*> Just
digressing about how I solved the "that/which" issue. I find this kind
of linguistic play endlessly fascinating.)
So, my silly memory trick is alphabetical order:
that = essential to meaning of sentence
^ ^
which = non-essential to meaning of sentence
^ ^
Sorry for the incessantly long digression. Such is what comes from
falling asleep with a copy of Seymour: An Introduction splayed open on
your chest one sleepy weekend evening....
--tim
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