Discussion Groups / English Usage / November 2006

For the first of those rewrites, you would want "Paris is a city that
has art galleries that are one of its biggest attractions," since the
"that" clause is restrictive and the strong preference is "that" for
restrictives and "which" for non-restrictives (as in the Africa
example).  Compare:

Wild geese, which fly high, are a menace to aviation.  [all do]
Wild geese that fly high are a menace to aviation.  [some do]

Of course, the resultant doubling-up of "that" in the recasting is
grossly infelicitous: the original casting was satisfactory.  Faced
with multiple instances of "that", some writers shrug and insert a
"which", as in "Paris is a city that has art galleries which are one of
its biggest attractions," but it is better practice to recast the
sentence so that the doubling simply disappears (without a faked-up
"which").

For the original poster's better understanding:

Relative clauses (clauses whose subject is a relative pronoun--that,
which, who, whom, whose, what, and a few other less-common ones) can be
either "restrictive" or "non-restrictive".  A restrictive clause
"restricts" its antecedent noun phrase in some way, that is, it sets
forth some defined, limited subset of the thing (as "that fly high"
defines a particular subset of the category "wild geese").
Correspondingly, a non-restrictive relative clause comments on, but
does not actually *restrict* the noun phrase it modifies (as "which fly
high" describes but does not select from "wild geese"); the content of
a non-restrictive can be stricken from the sentence without materially
affecting its meaning ("Wild geese [, which fly high,] are a menace to
aviation").

The difference is obviously crucial.  Curiously, the making of the
distinction has had a spotty history.  Once, not so long ago, both
types were handled in the same way: simply set off as parenthetical
material by a comma pair.  (John Dryden: "All, that can bring my
country good, is welcome.")  The reader was usually left to tell what
was what by context and intuition.  After the mid-point of the 19th
century, a newer method came in: the elimination of the commas for
restrictives.  But, since such clauses often terminate their sentences,
in effect the entire job of specifying the character of the clause was
frequently left to the presence or absence of a single comma--as one
stylist put it, "a flyspeck on the page."

Feeling that to be a weak mechanism, some writers began also making a
distinction between the relative pronouns used in such clauses, as
described above: "that" for restrictives" and "which" for
non-restrictives.  By the time Fowler wrote the original _Modern
English Usage_ (1926) the practice was common, though far from
universal; though it is often erroneously described as something he
dreamt up, he was only pleading for the more nearly universal adopting
of an existing custom.

To this hour, his advice is not universally followed, but it is
_widely_ followed, especially by writers of sound craftsmanship.  It is
also much recommended, as there is everything to be said for it and
nothing to be said against it (saving an occasional multiplying of
instances of "that", which only wants modest recasting).

Rarely if ever will you find variations in non-restrictive
clauses--practically no one will write or say something like "Wild
geese, that fly high, are a menace to aviation": to any civilized ear,
such a sentence practically screams for "which".  The same holds true
when speaking of persons: "who" is almost invariable (This man, who
broke all records, was a modest fellow.")

It is in restrictives that one too often sees a "which" where a "that"
would sit far more comfortably: things like "Wild geese which fly high
are a menace to aviation," are deplorably common.  When one sees such a
thing, one is unsure whether a comma was omitted or whether the writer
is careless of wise convention, and is thus left feeling at risk as to
one's interpretation of the intended sense (which one must *assume* to
be restrictive).

Your grammar is better than your spelling.  "Which" is definitely
wrong.  "Whose" is indeed the only correct answer.  There is no need
to write around it.

The original with "whose" is better.

No worse than the original with "whose."

I think everything Eric Walker wrote (in a separate post) is at least
not incorrect.  Just don't sell "whose" short.

Yes, that sounds right (except for the extraneous "a").

If anyone said this in this thread, I missed it:  That can be rendered
as "Paris is a city the art galleries of which are one ...".  I
wouldn't use that except in the most formal of writing though. "Whose"
is much, much more common.  

(We need "whichs" for this purpose, but don't have it.  "Which's" is
used, but as a contraction, not a possessive.)

Bill

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