Re: "thru"

["Race, Paul" <pdr -at- CCSPO -dot- DAYTONOH -dot- NCR -dot- COM>]

>From: techwr-l
>To: Multiple recipients of list TECHWR-L
>Subject: "thru"
>Date: Thursday, August 18, 1994 10:52AM

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>Underneath Sir Paul's eternally rigid visage is a bronze plaque.
>On this plaque we read a brief summary of the wonderful deeds
>accredited to Sir Paul. In this text there is one grammatical
>error: "which" is used inplace of "that"; and one misspelling:
>"thru" in place of "through".
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>-Mike (mu17692 -at- glaxo -dot- com)
> Glaxo Inc. Research Institute
> Research Triangle Park, NC

Let me guess, Mike, does the plaque use "which" in a restrictive clause, and
that offends you because all your high school and college textbooks
(published in U.S. since 1850) claim that to be an error?   It's no error,
at all, you know; it's a time-honored use of the word still very prevalent
in modern British writing.  Somebody somewhere decided it would be easier
for readers to determine whether a clause was restrictive or not by forcing
the use of "that" for all restrictive clauses, in spite of widespread
current usage to the contrary among educated writers.  When I receive a
document back with "which" changed to "that," nine times out of ten, it was
perfectly good grammar, but some clerically-trained nit-picker (the same
kind of person who thinks prepositions always have to precede the object,
etc.) has been on a "which" hunt.

Yes, if you are writing technical manuals in the United States, you might as
well use "that" everytime you introduce a restrictive clause, for the same
reason you keep the same hours as everyone else on the job: it will probably
make your life easier.  But to call the use of "which" in such a clause a
grammatical error betrays our own U.S. professional writer's parochialism.

Paul D. Race (AT&T GIS)  Paul -dot- D -dot- Race -at- DaytonOH -dot- ncr -dot- com