On Mon, Oct 3, 2016 at 9:22 AM, Tom Lane <t...@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote: > Robert Haas <robertmh...@gmail.com> writes: >> Sure, I'm not arguing with trying to be formal. The grammatical rule >> that you're describing doesn't exist for me, though. I believe that >> "that" can only introduce a restrictive clause, whereas "which" can >> introduce either a descriptive or a restrictive clause. > > Yeah, as was noted downthread, that's the British view of it.
Even in the Midwest I have frequently heard people arguing to avoid "that" in most situations where either could work. I ran into one professor who went to what I considered silly lengths to expurgate the word from documents. > Anyway, we've probably beaten this horse to death. Just to be sure of that, I'll cite the Chicago Manual of Style (my preferred style guide), which seems to chart a course somewhere in the middle: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Whichvs.That.html -- Kevin Grittner EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
