I just proofread an article of mine which had been copy-edited, in the process of which all my whichs (and some whos) had been changed into thats! Copy-editors tend to be anonymous, but I bet this person was American. Another which-hunter caught!
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And is that then something you have strong objection to? Is drawing a distinction between restrictive and non-restrictive is such a manner in formal writing not a convenient convention?
We already draw a distinction between restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses. The former are not set off by commas, while the latter are.
The “which/that” nit pickers bug me too, but a lot of them are editors and sometimes you just have to let them do their thing in order to get published so it’s worth knowing that it may be a problem. When Word grammar-check wants me to change one I usually give in.
It’s rather odd that the copyeditor would be a stickler on the that/which rule but then would change some whos into thats. I know a lot of editors who think that that should never be used with human referents. Some editors allow it, but I don’t think many would actually prescribe that in place of who.
The distinction between the two for me was brought to my attention by a university tutor in the late ’80s and he referred to Strunk and White’s style guide. I’m certain many American’s get their penchant for this from that source as well.
Indeed, it seems likely that E. B. White is the source of the rule’s popularity in the US today. When he revised William Strunk’s Elements of Style, he added the that/which rule to it, and it has apparently been enforced with vigor since then. See the graphs here.
And how about the use of apostrophes, Valerie ;-) ?