Elder Dan Lewis wrote:
Perhaps I am being a little picky about "which" and "that". It seems
to me that there are times when "which" can be used in place of
"that." (What I just wrote is an example of where "that" is correct
and "which" is not.) The United States in which I have always lived
allows the use of "which" as in this sentence.
For the records, I was educated in the United States, but for some
reason I do not understand the difference between American English and
British English as it comes to the use of these two pronouns.
--Dan
Americans (those in the US refer to themselves as...) are taught in
their grammar training that there is a difference in semantics when one
form is used over the other. Usually, a corresponding comma is also
often added with "which," which helps to further support the semantical
difference.
So, to an American, the use of the "wrong" form could introduce a doubt
as to rthe semantics involved.
And, of course, we also could get into the "Oxford" serial comma issue.
Due to increasingly lousy education in the US, especially with the
government schools in almost every subject matter, none of these issues
will matter at all in another decade or two, when printed books will go
the way of vinyl recordings and cassette tapes.
Confer a 2008 book on this issue:
http://www.dumbestgeneration.com/home.html.
<http://www.dumbestgeneration.com/home.html>
Gary
