Friday, August 1, 2008

Criminal Sentence 68: "That" or "Who"?

From an article about the movie "The Dark Knight":

"[The movie] explores the community that cheers for the hero that operates outside or above the law."

The second "that" is incorrect, since "hero" is a person and you refer to people as "who":

"the hero who..."

3 comments:

  1. General remarks: That, Who, Which compared
    The relative pronoun that can only be used in defining clauses. It can also be substituted for who (referring to persons) or which (referring to things). That is often used in speech; who and which are more common in written English

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  2. You're right that you can substitute "that" for "who," but I still like to use "who" to refer to people.
    Do you like to use "that" instead of "who" sometimes? I won't kill you if you do.

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