英语语法：201 Who Versus That

Grammar Girl here.

Today's topic is who versus¹ that.

Lesley called in with this question:

My pet peeve² is who versus that, as in “You know Bob, he's the guy that sold me my car.” It drives me nuts. Or am I mistaken and it's just become part of the new English verbiage³ in the evolution of the language?

I kind of talked about this question in episode 7, but other people have also asked the same thing recently, including Corinne, so I thought it would be worth going into a little further.

The quick and dirty answer is that you use who when you are talking about a person and that when you are talking about an object. Stick with that rule and you'll be safe.

But, of course, it is also more complicated than that. The who-goes-with-people rule is the conventional wisdom (1,2), but, on the other hand, I did find a credible⁴ reference that says otherwise. I was shocked to see that my American Heritage Dictionary says,

It is entirely⁵ acceptable to write either the man that wanted to talk to you, or the man who wanted to talk to you (3). [emphasis added]

Wow. So I dug around some more and found that there is a long history of writers using that as a relative pronoun when writing about people. Chaucer did it, for example (4).

So, it's more of a gray area than some people think, and if you have strong feelings about it, you could make an argument for using that when you're talking about people. But my guess is that most people who use who and that interchangeably do it because they don't know the difference. I don't consider myself a grammar snob-–this is “quick and dirty” grammar, after all-–but in this case, I have to take the side of the people who prefer the strict rule. To me, using that when you are talking about a person makes them seem less than human. I always think of my friend who would only refer to his new stepmother as the woman that married my father. He was clearly trying to indicate his animosity and you wouldn't want to do that accidentally.

Finally, even if you accept the conventional wisdom, there are some gray areas and strange exceptions. For example, what do you do when you are talking about something animate⁶ that isn't human? That's a gray area, and it can actually go either way. I would never refer to my dog as anything less than who, but my fish could probably be a that.

One strange exception is that you can use whose, which is the possessive form of who, to refer to both people and things (5,6,7,8) because English doesn't have a possessive form of that. So it's fine to say, "The desk whose top is cluttered⁷ with grammar books," even though it is obviously ridiculous to say, "The desk who is made of cherry wood."

So now you understand the details, but you can also remember the quick and dirty rule that who goes with people and that goes with things.

 

1 versus   

prep.以…为对手，对；与…相比之下

参考例句：

• The big match tonight is England versus Spain.今晚的大赛是英格兰对西班牙。
• The most exciting game was Harvard versus Yale.最富紧张刺激的球赛是哈佛队对耶鲁队。

2 peeve   

v.气恼，怨恨；n.麻烦的事物，怨恨

参考例句：

• She was in a peeve over it.她对这很气恼。
• She was very peeved about being left out.她为被遗漏而恼怒。

3 verbiage   

n.冗词；冗长

参考例句：

• Stripped of their pretentious verbiage,his statements come dangerously close to inviting racial hatred.抛开那些夸大其词的冗词赘语不论，他的言论有挑起种族仇恨的危险。
• Even in little 140-character bites,that's a lot of verbiage.即使限制在一条140个字也有很大一部分是废话。

4 credible   

adj.可信任的，可靠的

参考例句：

• The news report is hardly credible.这则新闻报道令人难以置信。
• Is there a credible alternative to the nuclear deterrent?是否有可以取代核威慑力量的可靠办法？

5 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

6 animate   

v.赋于生命，鼓励；adj.有生命的，有生气的

参考例句：

• We are animate beings,living creatures.我们是有生命的存在，有生命的动物。
• The girls watched,little teasing smiles animating their faces.女孩们注视着，脸上挂着调皮的微笑，显得愈加活泼。

7 cluttered   

v.杂物，零乱的东西零乱vt.( clutter的过去式和过去分词 )；乱糟糟地堆满，把…弄得很乱；（以…） 塞满…

参考例句：

• The room is cluttered up with all kinds of things. 零七八碎的东西放满了一屋子。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The desk is cluttered with books and papers. 桌上乱糟糟地堆满了书报。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》