In an 1858 text, Goold Brown discusses the use of ‘which’ to refer to persons as in “Our father which art in heaven”. He complains that some:

British critics, still preferring the archaism, have accused ” The Americans” of “poor criticism,” in that they “have changed which into who, as being more consonant to the rules of Grammar.” Falsely imagining, that which and who, with the same antecedent, can be of different genders, they allege, that, “Tho use of the neuter pronoun carried with it a certain vagueness and sublimity, not inappropriate in reminding us that our worship is addressed to a Being, infinite, and superior to all distinctions applicable to material objects.” -Men and Manners in America : quoted and endorsed by the REV. MATT. HARRISON, in his treatise on the English Language, p. 191. This is all fancy; and, in my opinion, absurd.

In the 19th century grammarians found it difficult to agree about the use of ‘which’ to refer to God. Cobbett called it an error while James Roscoe Mongan wrote that it was accurate and, according to some, more reverential.

Another earlier translation (Wycliffe’s) has:

Our Father that art in heavens, hallowed be thy name;

What do you think?

“Our Father, who is in heaven, has a hallowed name”

or

“Our Father that is in heaven has a hallowed name” (as opposed to some other Father that isn’t in heaven!).

I would think the former, but in modern English you’d never use ‘which’ when referring to a person (other than perhaps a baby, where the impersonal pronoun is occasionally used).

“What most wanted was the book which the teacher recommended”

sounds positively awkward to me – and I suspect it’s because you don’t need either ‘which’ or ‘that’ for it to be grammatical. In your example a relative pronoun is required, so using ‘which’ is probably OK.

But even that’s not enough, because, for instance, surely nobody would say “People which smoke have a high risk of cancer” – despite the relative pronoun being required. So I honestly don’t think there is a good simple rule as to when “which” can be used, but given that “that” is always OK, I can see why some would prefer a rule that says to never use “which”.

On the other hand, there’s no point insisting on these things to someone that doesn’t care.

A pedant by my definition is someone who’s more interested in the form than the content of any given sentence. Someone who, when told by his child, ‘these guys beat Dave and I up’, will wince not at the news itself but at the grammatical error.

An even more annoying phenomenon is the self-proclaimed or would-be pedant — the type who loves to complain about split infinitives and sentences ending in prepositions, but lacks any capacity to judge the nuances of the case.

Conrad – Re: Pullum on EoS. I’m trying to visualise a suppurating sentence.

NPOV – I almost wrote “What most wanted was a book which told them how to write English correctly.”

The King James Bible is infested with whiches. For example: “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.”

I imagine that the Bible was the standard counter-example to the rule. Perhaps this is why the which hunters accuse their enemies of pretentiousness. Instead of admitting that the language of the King James Version is archaic (and getting into a discussion about the way usage changes over time), they say that it is ‘formal’.

Mike – I agree. Fowler is fun in the same way that Jeremy Clarkson is fun.

I can’t help imagining a kind of Top Gear for language nerds. Instead of giving the Stig flash cars to race around the track, they’d send out an anonymous editor (the ‘Sic’?) to correct the language on billboards, shop windows and official forms. Then it would be back to the studio to see how the special guest did at a timed editing task — “There you are then, just two seconds behind Shannon Noll.”

After that, perhaps a spirited panel discussion on split infinitives and a rant about Kevin Rudd’s speeches.

I have no patience for the MS grammar checker but Fowler is delightful. Rules are made to be broken (a) if you know the rule and (b) if it improves clarity or readability.

This article has some, but they seem to be very particular cases – and I would still find ‘that’ more comfortable in all 3 examples: their last example sounds a bit contrived either way, but I would prefer “What was that book that John mentioned last night?” over “What was that book which John mentioned last night?”.

Geoff Pullum has a few comments on it, and I’m sure he knows more about that type of stuff than almost everyone. You’ll enjoy what he calls the Elements of Style.

So what should we say about which-hunting? Is it pedantry, an annoying Americanism, an enjoyable sport or sign of linguistic competence?

Pedantry, an annoying Americanism and a sign of intellectual snobbery (but not linguistic competence – precisely the opposite in fact).