Is it okay to say the person that did it, or should you say the person who did it? Both are fine, although who is probably preferable in that it acknowledges that person’s humanity. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “That vs. Who”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Good afternoon. This is Norm Herman, North Carolina.
Hi, Norm.
Where in North Carolina?
In a small town, not even a town called Etowah. It’s near Asheville.
Oh, sure.
Out west.
Oh, my gosh. You’re in the Smokies. I’m so jealous.
Nice place for hiking.
Oh, my gosh. Tell me about it. What’s on your mind?
I don’t know if the change is with me or if the change is with our culture.
I’m seeing a lot of usage of that in reference to action by people.
Like, oh, Johnny is the boy that fell down the hill instead of Johnny is a boy who fell down the hill.
And I don’t know if this is more acceptable or it’s always been acceptable or what? What’s going on?
Well, Norm, it sounds like something about that bothers you.
What bothers you about it?
I think, and I’ve thought about this a little bit now, I think it’s like a dehumanization.
You know, it’s like when people refer to a baby as it, you know?
And what about animals?
Do you feel the same way about animals?
This is the dog who?
I think it depends on your emotional attachment to the animal.
Yep, yep.
Okay.
I agree with that.
I agree with you generally about the dehumanization of it.
I don’t think it’s something that should be stamped out of the speech and writing of other people.
And I know that many of the style guides actually don’t express a particularly strong preference for who when talking about people.
As some of them specifically say, it doesn’t matter.
Both of these pronouns work just fine.
I agree with you that if you have the choice to say who about another human being, you should do it instead of using that.
It’s just a subtler, more friendly, warmer, humanistic approach.
Just one little attribute of your writing can affect the whole cast of it as being less clinical, less academic.
Yeah, and why not use it?
Yeah.
Okay.
But both of these have long been used each way, and the grammar doesn’t require who.
Custom doesn’t require who.
And style may at various institutions require who, but it’s usually left up to the institution or the writer themselves.
I do like your distinction about animals now that I think about it.
I’m thinking this is the dog who went on the hike with me, but that’s the snake that bit me.
You can invert that and say that also applies to people, though.
If you’re pointing at somebody in the distance that you don’t know, that’s Sue who won the race.
You know who. You know Sue.
But if you say that’s Sue that lost the race, then you are separating yourself from Sue and kind of indicating that you don’t know her or have familiarity.
And you might start to see this and pay a little more attention and see if you can determine that there is a difference between that and who, the distance and the knowledge of the person that you’re talking about.
Okay.
But thanks for noticing, Norm.
And if you’re in a position to teach others, you could express your preference in a gentle way and let them know, you know, who would work better here?
Why don’t you try who?
And in that way, you can affect language change.
Thanks for calling.
Thank you.
All right.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
You do notice those things.
And after you notice something in print, it just keeps coming up.
And you’ve got to scratch that itch and call our show.
Yeah.
Email words@waywordradio.org.
