Timeline for How to use "who" vs. "that"
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
12 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Apr 24, 2011 at 14:42 | comment | added | Dan | @chaos: Good lord. Ms Straus, grammarbook.com/grammar/whoVwhVt.asp offers up three rules for relative pronoun use and they are either wrong or badly misleading. 'which', as The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language notes, is also used in certain limited situations when the referent is people. | |
| Feb 4, 2011 at 20:09 | history | edited | avpaderno | CC BY-SA 2.5 |
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| Feb 3, 2011 at 21:58 | comment | added | chaos | @subt13: Part of the situation appears to be "sources disagree". | |
| Feb 3, 2011 at 20:07 | comment | added | O.O | Well, you both can't be right :)... | |
| Feb 3, 2011 at 17:57 | comment | added | avpaderno | The New Oxford American Dictionary and dictionary.com report what I wrote. In the Corpus of Contemporary English you can find sentences like Remember the person that was that clever to do that? | |
| Feb 3, 2011 at 16:05 | comment | added | chaos | @kiamlaluno: "The dictionary"? Surely you know there is no singular "the dictionary". For a contrary viewpoint to whatever work you're referring to, try grammarbook.com/grammar/whoVwhVt.asp. | |
| Feb 3, 2011 at 16:02 | comment | added | avpaderno | That is used instead of who, whom, and which; there is not rule in English grammar that says that should not be used for persons. In fact, the dictionary reports you can replace who with that. | |
| Feb 3, 2011 at 15:50 | vote | accept | O.O | ||
| Feb 3, 2011 at 21:14 | |||||
| Feb 3, 2011 at 15:40 | history | edited | chaos | CC BY-SA 2.5 |
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| Feb 3, 2011 at 15:38 | comment | added | chaos | @subt13: Yes. I believe one can get away with either usage in reference to animals, and the choice one makes will affect the tone of the work. | |
| Feb 3, 2011 at 15:37 | comment | added | O.O | What do you mean by gray area? There is no definite rule? | |
| Feb 3, 2011 at 15:33 | history | answered | chaos | CC BY-SA 2.5 |