Then Vs Than and That Vs Which

By Darcie Carsner Torres

So, I'm reading some articles that just made the muscles in my neck strain and shake in my growing annoyance at seeing multiple grammar mistakes. The writer kept writing "then" when he/she meant "than." Being that the articles were published online, I couldn't click on the mistakes and fix them. It drove me nuts. And like all things that drive me crazy, I thought, "Hey! Why not complain about it in an article and teach people how to do it right?"

So, here we are. Again. Learning to write right. I'm so pithy.

Then vs. Than

"Then" refers to a period of time. "Than" refers to a comparison.

I will meet you then [at the time agreed upon].

My cooking is better than my husband's.

Not: I'd rather go to work then clean the house. [THAN!]

See? Simple. It irks me that I have to write an article about this.

Which vs. That

Okay, this mistake is a little more understandable. In fact, until I went to grad school, I had no clue. Turns out my teachers had let me confuse the two circumstances over and over instead of schooling me in the difference. So, here we go. Let's look at two similar sentences:

I like the yellow one that she wore.

I like the yellow one, which she wore.

In the first sentence, you are talking about a dress, perhaps. You like the yellow one you saw on Debbie that day. In the second sentence, you know Debbie has a closet full of dresses to choose from, and you like the yellow one. Debbie happened to choose it to wear that day. It's a subtle difference, I admit.

That same grad school professor also happened to be a "that" Nazi. He claimed [that] we could eliminate almost all instances of "that" in our writing, because it was a useless and unnecessary word. I agree to some extent. For instance, in the first sentence, you could eliminate "that" from the sentence and it still reads correctly: I like the yellow one she wore. This is instructive when it comes to eliminating extraneous words from your writing. You can probably find a way to eliminate almost all "thats" from your writing. Anyway.

Another thing to notice is the punctuation used with "which." There should be a big red arrow pointing to that comma. Almost any time you use "which," there should be a comma preceding it.

Now let me really mess you up:

I listened to that which the teacher told me.

Not only did I use them together, there was no comma before "which." To make it worse, I could have replaced it with "what": I listened to what the teacher told me.

One thing to keep in mind is the necessary [that] versus extra [which] information test. Take a look below:

Children that are good are a blessing.

Children, which are good, are a blessing.

Cars that are fuel efficient create less pollution.

Cars, which are fuel efficient, create less pollution.

You'll notice the word "that" in both sets of comparisons points to a descriptive phrase that is necessary. In the first case, "that" narrows the possible field of all children down to only those that are good. So, only "good children" are a blessing. In the "which" example, all children are a blessing, and children happen to be good for you, too. You can take out the phrase between the commas and it means the same thing. The second example points out how a sentence can sound ridiculous if you mess up the rules. Sentence one says that fuel-efficient cars create less pollution. The second sentence says that [all] cars are fuel efficient and create less pollution.

Last example:

Which one do you want? That one?

"Which" is used to indicate that there are a range of items to choose from. "That" points to a specific one in the bunch.

Of

Okay, I'm sort of shoving this in here because I didn't want to write an entire article dedicated to this itty bitty word. It doesn't deserve it. That's my opinion and I'll stand by it to the death.

It jangles my nerves when people substitute a possessive for a prepositional phrase. Translation:

her books; my mother's books

the books of my mother

It requires a lot of extra words to use "of." Wasted ink. It's not "stylish"; it doesn't sound more "literary." It just sounds awkward. Don't do it. I will correct it. And I will charge you more per word if you do it too much.

Darcie Carsner Torres is a professional writer and editor with over 20 years of experience. She provides editing and critiquing services through CanAm Author Services, http://www.canamauthorservices.com, and editing and ghostwriting services through Pen & Pestle, http://www.penandpestle.com. Her mission is to help budding authors improve their writing and get published.

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