Page:The king's English (IA kingsenglish00fowlrich).pdf/102

88 All the toys that infatuate men, and which they play for, are the self-same thing.—.

All these are correct: in the first both clauses are non-defining, in the others both define.

The hills were so broken and precipitous as to afford no passage except just upon the narrow line of the track which we occupied, and which was overhung with rocks, from which we might have been destroyed merely by rolling down stones.—.

Wrong: the first clause defines, the second not.

From doing this they were prevented by the disgraceful scene which took place, and which the leader of the Opposition took no steps to avert.—Times.

Wrong. The first clause defines, the second is obviously one of comment: the 'scene' is not distinguished from those that the leader did take steps to avert.

They propose that the buildings shall belong... to the communes in which they stand, and which, it is hoped, will not permit their desecration.—Spectator.

Wrong. The communes that 'will not permit' are not meant to be distinguished from those that will. The second clause is comment, the first defines.

All these are wrong. Thackeray would probably have been saved from these false coordinations if he had observed the distinction between 'that' and 'which': 'In the best French (that) he could muster, which in sooth was...'.

There goes another sort of animal that is differentiating from my species, and which I would gladly see exterminated.—H. G..

Probably the second clause, like the first, is meant to define: if so, the coordination is right; if not, it is wrong. We have alluded to the tendency to avoid 'that' when the relative is widely separated from its antecedent; here, the result is ambiguity.