pet peeve: "that" vs "which"

[gusl]

My new pet peeve: people who use "which" when they should use "that". I'm seeing this everywhere now that I pay attention to it!

There may be some grey areas, but lots of people jump right over the fuzzy line:

I cringe when I see:
"We should not endorse any projects which attempt to become too big."
"How would that help us prove scientific claims which are politically-charged?"

Even I get tempted to overuse "which". That's the most annoying part.

That's probably the same reason why it annoys me when non-Dutch people misuse "de" and "het": because I'm insecure myself. Probably the same reason why an ex-smoker would be extremely annoyed at people smoking around him.


---

Here's a grey area: from here
"Chandler worked as a Data-Processor, a job which he thoroughly loathed."

Comments

[jcreed.livejournal.com]

By the way, I like the phrase "makes my teeth itch", which I found here.