"Which Hunters"

[cehjr]

I loved On Writing. Stephen King urges familiarity with the principles in Strunk & White. He does not follow the "which vs. that" lesson, however. He misuses "which" numerous times. That error reduced my enjoyment of his treatise greatly.

Chuck Humphrey

[JohnDalglish]

Hi,

Is it an 'error' or is it the considered choice of the creative artist to bend and break these 'principles' (which are not written in stone, after all) at will?

Your choice, which is it to be? LOL

Long days and pleasant nights

[aptpupil]

Nobody loves a smartass, Chuck!

[Bryan James]

Kill your last adverb and provide examples.

[Bev Vincent]

I tend to misuse which/that, too, mostly because we Canadians tend to follow the British style, where the two can be used interchangeably. It's only been in recent years (and mostly because of Microsoft Word's insistence on the matter) that I've become aware of the American distinction and am now compliant in my writing -- but I'm sure I use "which" more often than "that" when speaking, because my editor doesn't work as well there.

[Mr Nobody]

I 'spose I'd get accused of misusing which/that. The two are fairly interchangeable (not always), and iirc it's largely an American 'rule' mentioned by Strunk & White, so it's not one I'd adhere to in any case (not taught the American way, being a Brit. Plus one might sound better than t'other in a particular context - which is the important thing and the true distinction, IMO).
Anyway, if everyone wrote according to strict rules, we'd only need one author (and s/he could be replaced by a machine), as all fiction would look and 'sound' the same.
I guess the real trick is to know all the rules - native and other - and how, when and where to break them, as well as why they were broken.

[DwayneHoover]

I wouldn't worry about whether or not which/that is used correctly because it rips the fun out of the writing process. There is an author named Ronald Sukanick that completely destroys the human English language, but it does not matter, because he is able to take you on a journey outside of my small world. He destroys confines and breaks down fences, similar to Kurt Vonnegut. The rules are used to keep everyone on the same page, but sometimes (all the time) we must bash apart those robotic barriers that make us all the same. We cannot all think the same, I refuse to think anything benificial can come from this practice. Hitler was able to get everybody to think the same, look where that lead him. Six million murders and a gun in the mouth.