Use of that versus which

Question

My wife is learning English and she wrote the following sentence.

"When highlighting the large profit losses, the author identified a decrease in sales at Tasty Cream that is the only ice cream store in town."

She believes that this sentence is grammatically correct. However, I believe that using "Tasty Cream, which is the only ice cream store in town" or "Tasty Cream, the only ice cream store in town" is grammatically correct. Can someone help to explain which usage is correct and why? Thank you!

With respect to your note among the answers below, here is the [edit] link for you to make corrections to the question directly. — Lawrence, Sep 19 '16 at 03:34

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited Sep 18 '22 at 19:01

0

For all practical purposes they are interchangeable, especially in British English. The rule, which is actually quite arbitrary, is this:

Use 'which' when introducing a nonrestrictive clause; use 'that' when introducing a restrictive clause.

Again, regardless of the rule, they are practically interchangeable and the vast, vast majority of people use them as such.

Source: Link

edited Sep 18 '22 at 19:01

Glorfindel

14,499

answered Sep 19 '16 at 03:05

stampedunder

324

You've got that backwards. – tchrist Sep 19 '16 at 03:19
Yeah, was a pretty harmful mistype. – stampedunder Sep 19 '16 at 03:22

Use of that versus which

1 Answers1