That or Which, and Why

Evan Jenkins

Routledge

Evan Jenkins col­lected and expanded mate­r­ial from his col­umn in the Columbia Journalism Review to cre­ate That or Which, and Why (Routledge), a clear and suc­cinct guide to English lan­guage, gram­mar and usage. The book is intended for writ­ers and read­ers at all lev­els, and it lists, in alpha­bet­i­cal order, com­mon prob­lems such as when to use a and when an, the dif­fer­ence between have to and got to, the impos­si­bil­ity of for­mer native and a dis­cus­sion on whether to use whether or whether or not. Jenkins’s approach to lan­guage is prac­ti­cal, and it seems informed by two guide­lines: com­mon sense can get you through many gram­mar prob­lems, and the most impor­tant things in com­mu­ni­ca­tion are clar­ity and under­stand­ing. His demo­c­ra­tic approach may infu­ri­ate purists, espe­cially on top­ics such as “try to” and “try and,” both of which Jenkins accepts because they are so widely used and under­stood, despite log­i­cal prob­lems with “try and,” but this is what makes the book so palat­able for the rest of us.