Is It Okay to Omit Words Like Which and That?

Many people think they can shorten their sentences by eliminating words like which and that. They don't realize that deleting these words may cut the reader's clue to the relationship between the first half and the second half of the sentence. While there are times when you can afford to cut these words, which are called relative pronouns, doing so might confuse your readers.

Too Many Which’s Signal a Too-Long Sentence

If you see too many which's in your sentences, the solution is not to “go on a which hunt,” as a professor once said to someone who took my writing class. All those which's should be whispering in your ear that you have too many dependent clauses. Instead of severing your reader’s lifeline to the structure of your sentence, cut the long sentence where you see the which’s and create several shorter sentences.

That May Be Important

Similarly, you might see grammar checkers like Grammarly routinely deleting that from complex sentences. Sometimes this works. Other times, not so much. Here’s why: When we learn to read, we begin with the simple sentence structure SUBJECT – VERB- OBJECT. For example, take the sentence “I hit the ball.” The subject is "I". The verb is "hit". The object is "the ball."

When we read, our minds automatically seek this structure. If we cut the word that in an effort to streamline our sentence, we risk our reader misunderstanding our sentence structure. For example, Grammarly tried to edit the following sentence from a writing sample I reviewed recently:

The customer service manager reported that customer complaints had diminished by 15% in the first quarter.

Deleting that would yield the sentence:

The customer service manager reported customer complaints had diminished by 15% in the first quarter.

Notice that at first glance, it seems that the sentence is saying The customer service manager reported … complaints. You read it as a subject-verb-object sentence. But then you are flummoxed by the remainder of the sentence, had diminished by 15%....

Keeping that in the sentence clearly distinguishes “The customer service manager reported” from “customer complaints had diminished…”

Here’s another example:

The main reason for the change in the turnover was that the shipping season in Florida is usually a month ahead of the western region.

If you delete that, you have

The main reason for the change in the turnover was the shipping season in Florida is usually a month ahead of the western region.

This implies that the delay is due to the shipping season in Florida rather than the real reason, which is the difference in the timing of the season.

These are just a few examples of the confusion that can arise from omitting the word that.

Relative Pronouns are Exit Signs

Relative pronouns such as which and that are like freeway exit signs: They tell the reader that they are exiting the central, independentpart of the sentence and entering a side street, a dependent clause. Imagine trying to navigate the highways without exit signs; you would never know where to get off. Similarly, without signposts like that, the reader stumbles ahead, thinking they are still in the primary part of the sentence when, in fact, they’ve exited the main road.

Sometimes Grammarly is correct, and you can omit that without confusing your reader. As with all AI-powered tools, you must judge when to follow the algorithm’s advice. When writing under human-only power, beware of uprooting the signposts that tell your readers where they are in your sentence.

In other words, don’t kill the which!

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If you missed the last Writamin on What's the Difference Between Which and That? Read it here.

To see Elizabeth Danziger's recent Inc.com columns:

7 Ways to Overcome Stress-Induced Brain Freeze

Avoid Over-Using the CC Field