Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
> Sure, I'm not arguing with trying to be formal. The grammatical rule
> that you're describing doesn't exist for me, though. I believe that
> "that" can only introduce a restrictive clause, whereas "which" can
> introduce either a descriptive or a restrictive clause.
Yeah, as was noted downthread, that's the British view of it.
> It's impossible for to imagine someone reading "functions which return text
> must do X" and coming away with the conclusion that all functions
> return text.
I deliberately chose an example in which the implication was silly, but
in other cases it's less silly and so it may not be clear to the reader
that you didn't intend to imply it.
> The reason I tend to prefer "which" is that "that" can mean lots of
> other things, too.
Sure, but you can make examples in the other direction as well. FWIW,
I agree that it's a good idea to try to avoid "that that" and similar
cases where confusion could be introduced by multiple possible meanings
of "that"; and this particular grammatical rule sometimes loses out in
such cases. But the changes you complained about didn't involve any
such situation.
Anyway, we've probably beaten this horse to death.
regards, tom lane
