That and which

Bruce Ross-Larson’s Edit Yourself: A Manual for Everyone Who Works with Words (New York: W.W. Norton, 1982) has impressed me again. Twenty-six pages in, I have found useful advice for solving the problem of a relative clause that doesn’t follow the noun it modifies.

Ross-Larson’s example: “The meaning of the sentence, which is usually obvious from. . . .” What can make it clear that the relative clause beginning with which modifies meaning and not sentence ? Ross-Larson suggests four workarounds:

~ “Make the object of the prepositional phrase plural and rely on verb number.” Thus: “The meaning of sentences, which usually is obvious from. . . .”

~ “Repeat the noun before a relative clause.” Thus: “The meaning of the sentence, meaning which usually is obvious from. . . .”

~ “Delete the intervening prepositional phrase.” Thus: “The meaning, which usually is obvious from. . . .”

~ ”Rewrite the sentence.” Thus: “The meaning of sentences usually is obvious from. . . .”

This small (half a page) section of Edit Yourself interests me because it offers alternatives to the rather loopy New Yorker strategy of “the irregular restrictive which,” a which that replaces that when a relative clause is separated from the noun it modifies. Notice that in Ross-Larson’s example, which could be the work of a writer who intends an irregular restrictive which. But that intent does nothing to remove the ambiguity.

And consider this New Yorker sentence, by John McPhee, which accompanies his explanation of the irregular restrictive which :

In 1822, the Belgian stratigrapher J. J. d’Omalius d’Halloy, working for the French government, put a name on the chalk of Europe which would come to represent an ungainly share of geologic time.

If you want to avoid that because a reader might mistakenly read “that would come to represent . . .” as referring to chalk and not to name, you can avoid the irregular restrictive which by rewriting the sentence:

In 1822, the Belgian stratigrapher J. J. d’Omalius d’Halloy, working for the French government, gave the chalk of Europe a name that would come to represent an ungainly share of geologic time.

Problem solved. At $13.95, Edit Yourself is a bargain.

[I’d prefer a slightly different rewriting: “The meaning of a sentence is usually obvious from. . . .” No need for the plural, and usually, to my ear, falls more naturally after the verb.]