Timeline for Should you use "who" or "that" when talking about multiple people doing something?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
10 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Mar 2, 2014 at 22:49 | comment | added | Anonym | This is not entirely so. Who only refers to people, but that refers to both people and objects. Indeed, that is the older relative pronoun for both people and objects. | |
| Jan 20, 2013 at 14:36 | history | edited | RegDwigнt | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 7 characters in body
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| Oct 23, 2012 at 8:00 | comment | added | Kris | -1 "Who refers to people. That and which refer to groups or things." Not always. Wish you were not so categorical, because there are many (kinds of) exceptions. (cf. other answers.) | |
| Mar 10, 2011 at 20:00 | comment | added | avpaderno | "The person that I have met last night." | |
| Aug 10, 2010 at 22:37 | comment | added | Vincent McNabb | I voted you up, because I agreed with what you wrote. I also agree with what I wrote. I'm just skeptical that "that" should never be used in that context. For instance, Googling "people that went" returns 5 million results. "people who went" returns 28 million. So while "who" used as an adjective clause is much more common, "that" is also very common. | |
| Aug 10, 2010 at 21:13 | comment | added | VonC | @Vincent: but for introducing an adjective clause, this remains true, right? For adjective clause, "who" will always be used when referring to people. | |
| Aug 10, 2010 at 21:13 | comment | added | Vincent McNabb | Oh - and isn't it lovely how different sources just LOVE to disagree with each other?? Wouldn't it be nice to have a central academy of English... :-D | |
| Aug 10, 2010 at 21:07 | comment | added | Vincent McNabb | Of course, that is not entirely true. There are cases, like this: "That person is nice". You could never say "Who person is nice". So "that" does indeed also refer to people. | |
| Aug 10, 2010 at 19:26 | vote | accept | Bryan Downing | ||
| Aug 10, 2010 at 19:13 | history | answered | VonC | CC BY-SA 2.5 |