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The word "which", by its definition, is "asking for information specifying one or more people or things from a definite set." So, naturally, "which foods do you..." is the correct way of phrasing this question, right? But some people tell me that "what foods do you..." is the correct way. This phrasing even returns more Google results — 1.4 million as compared to 221k for "which foods..."

So which one... err... what one is correct?

tchrist
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subtlearray
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    I think you may have demonstrated above that you already have an intuitive understanding of the main distinction (insofar as there is a difference). Which always implies selecting something from some set of possible choices, so the answer to "Which do you want?" should be restricted to items on the menu (or otherwise contextually "available"). But "What do you want?" could be answered by anything that you want, even if it doesn't exist, and has never been thought of by the person asking for your preference. – FumbleFingers Oct 26 '14 at 18:15
  • @FumbleFingers Apologies if this is a duplicate. Thank you though for the link and explanation. – subtlearray Oct 26 '14 at 18:16
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    There's no reason to apologise for posting duplicate questions on ELU. Firstly, the site search facilities are hopeless, and secondly it's no bad thing if we end up with several different questions all closed in favour of some earlier "original". Precisely because the site search is so bad, it actually helps to find that original if there are multiple questions leading to it. But feel free to contest the closevotes if you don't think the original (and maybe my comments above) have answered your question. – FumbleFingers Oct 26 '14 at 18:24

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