{"id":6140,"date":"2013-10-13T00:03:22","date_gmt":"2013-10-12T16:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vappingo.com\/word-blog\/?p=6140"},"modified":"2013-10-13T00:03:22","modified_gmt":"2013-10-12T16:03:22","slug":"the-difference-between-which-and-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vappingo.com\/word-blog\/the-difference-between-which-and-that\/","title":{"rendered":"The Quickest &#038; Easiest Way To Differentiate Between That and Which"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vappingo.com\/word-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/monkey-juggler.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1568\" title=\"monkey juggler\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vappingo.com\/word-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/monkey-juggler.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"258\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a>If you frequently confuse the words &#8220;which&#8221; and &#8220;that,&#8221; don\u2019t feel too bad, you are not alone. It\u2019s up there as one of the most common errors that our proofreaders and editors come across.<\/p>\n<p>The good news is that we have a very simple approach to determining the difference between &#8220;which&#8221; and &#8220;that&#8221; and by reading just three short paragraphs you can banish this particular grammar hangup for good.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>The difference between which and that involves two simple rules:<\/h2>\n<ul class=\"list-1\">\n<li>The word &#8220;that&#8221; should be used before a restrictive clause.<\/li>\n<li>The word &#8220;which&#8221; before any other <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vappingo.com\/word-blog\/dependent-and-independent-clauses\/\">clause<\/a> (a nonrestrictive clause).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That&#8217;s pretty much it.\u00a0Simple really.<\/p>\n<h3>Great. But what\u2019s a restrictive clause? (That)<\/h3>\n<p>A restrictive clause is <strong>absolutely essential to the meaning of a sentence<\/strong>. If you take it away then the sentence will no longer make sense to the reader.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The hairy goat\u2019s <u>opinion that the young monkey could not juggle chainsaws while standing on one leg<\/u> was sadly proven to be correct.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The part of the sentence underlined above, \u201copinion that the young monkey could not juggle chainsaws while standing on one leg,\u201d is restrictive because the sentence does not achieve anything without it:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The hairy goat\u2019s opinion was sadly proven to be correct.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What was his opinion, who or what did he have an opinion on?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>What\u2019s a nonrestrictive clause? (Which)<\/h3>\n<p>A nonrestrictive clause is the part of a sentence that <strong>can be completely left out without changing the meaning of the sentence<\/strong>. Simply put, it\u2019s just additional information.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The hairy goat\u2019s opinion, <u>which we all agreed with<\/u>, was that the monkey could not juggle chainsaws while standing on one leg.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In this example, the phrase \u201cwhich we all agreed with\u201d is additional information. Its inclusion or exclusion does not really change the meaning of the sentence. If we take it out, the sentence remains plausible:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The hairy goat\u2019s opinion was that the monkey could not juggle chainsaws while standing on one leg.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>So that\u2019s it in a nutshell. Many people will argue that the rules are not quite so straightforward but\u2014in our opinion\u2014simple is best, and if you can master the differences between nonrestrictive clauses and restrictive clauses you\u2019re pretty much there.<\/p>\n<p>If you still can&#8217;t grasp the differences between which and that, or you\u2019ve written something that needs to be absolutely perfect and you need someone to check your English, take a look at our proofreading services now.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you frequently confuse the words &#8220;which&#8221; and &#8220;that,&#8221; don\u2019t feel too bad, you are not alone. It\u2019s up there as one of the most common errors that our proofreaders and editors come across. The good news is that we have a very simple approach to determining the difference between &#8220;which&#8221; and &#8220;that&#8221; and by &#8230; <a title=\"The Quickest &#038; Easiest Way To Differentiate Between That and Which\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.vappingo.com\/word-blog\/the-difference-between-which-and-that\/\" aria-label=\"More on The Quickest &#038; Easiest Way To Differentiate Between That and Which\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vappingo.com\/word-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vappingo.com\/word-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vappingo.com\/word-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vappingo.com\/word-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vappingo.com\/word-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vappingo.com\/word-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vappingo.com\/word-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vappingo.com\/word-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vappingo.com\/word-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}