Comment by Cushman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Cushman | Hacker News Reader

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The visualization is totally cool, though I don't claim to understand the analysis.

...but if it helps, you made a little English error. Wouldn't even have mentioned if you hadn't said you were French :)

> [Republicans.] Most of which are either moderates or closer to the Democrats than to their own party.

> Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins are the two Republican Senators from Maine which are both regarded to be leading moderates within their party.

Should be "Most of whom..." and "...who are both...".

"Which" is only ever[1] used in relative clauses to describe inanimate objects (as you do correctly five other times in the article). Humans and animals are always either "who" (more personal) or "that" (more impersonal).

Note that's only in relative clauses-- "Which senator is yours?" is fine, but "The senator which represents me" means that I think my senator is a card table.[2]

[1] Outside of the odd dialect, of course.

[2] Not necessarily out of the question.

You're perfectly right, I've reworked the text several times and these mistake slipped through the proofreading. Thanks for pointing them out.

I'll assume you're correct in your explanation. I've never heard it explained that way.

But as a native speaker "that" sounds slightly more correct than "which" because it seems less formal, however, if I heard a non-native speaker say "which" it wouldn't sound weird nor would it be something I would have corrected them on.

Of course, with all of this stuff, people have different sensitivities-- and I know there are some dialects where "which" regularly references a person. I actually might not notice the first occurrence myself, although on reflection it looks a little odd. The second one jumped out at me as seeming pretty weird, though.

Even so, I wouldn't correct it except that, read uncharitably, referring to a person with an inanimate term could be seen as somewhat insulting. Especially if you're writing about politics, it's probably worth getting right just to avoid that impression.

In American English, which is normally used in non-restrictive clauses (offset by commas), and that is normally used in restrictive clauses (not offset by commas).

Using which in a restrictive clause like The senator which represents me... or The road which runs from X to Y... is somewhat uncommon. Both of those examples sound better in American English using that in place of which. If the subjects didn't need disambiguation, though, that would no longer be appropriate, e.g., Senator Jones, who represents me, ... or Foobar Street, which runs from X to Y, ...

As Cushman points out, though, which used on a person doesn't quite work. That can work on a person, though, but who/whom can work for people in both restrictive and non-restrictive clauses.

See http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/645/01/ if you want to read a well-structured and thorough explanation.

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