KarmaSue Denham writes, "I once slipped out of work two hours early without the boss noticing. In my hurry to make the most of this petty victory, I knocked myself out on the car door and spent the rest of the day semi-conscious, bowking rich brown vomit over my one and only suit."
Have you been visited by the forces of Karma, or watched it happen to other people?
Thanks to Pooflake for the suggestion
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chthonic, Thu 21 Feb 2008, 14:24)
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It's not down to being chavvyIt's whether the clause needs to be restrictive or non-restrictive. "That" is restrictive, "which" is non-restrictive.
To quote: "A restrictive clause is one that limits, or restricts, the scope of the noun it is referring to."
In this case, "that" limits the message to the type that calls him a twat. If you used "which", the sentence would look like this;
"So I sent them a message, which pointed out they were, in fact, a grade A twat."
This implies that calling him a twat is only a by-the-by fact about the message.
So in this particular case, it depends; is the "calling him a twat" element an important part of the nature of the message (that), or an unimportant part of it that doesn't really define the message, but merely helps identify it as seperate from other messages (which)?
It's very subtle, and I'm not really sure I understand it properly myself.
It's important sometimes, though;
"The cars that are red should park here." = some of the cars being spoken of are red, they should park here.
"The cars, which are red, should park here." = ALL of the cars being spoken of are red, they should park here.
(, Tue 26 Feb 2008, 13:32, Reply)
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