Relative clause and that

Question

THE suicide-blast by a jihadist triple-agent in Afghanistan on December 30th, that killed seven American spies and one Jordanian, was a calamity for the CIA.

Above the sentence is a relative clause and that here is relative pronoun. As far as I know, the relative pronoun that can't be used like this. It can't describe the former sentence and further, the comma can't be used before that but only before which, when, where.

Do you agree with me here in this point ?

Quoted from economist.com

Mr Wordy · Accepted Answer

I would more naturally use "which" in this sentence.

However, I do not view "that" as wrong.

Seloc@n · Answer

In like those circumstances, what are we supposed to treat ?

Is there a standard rule for the usage of relative pronouns in defining relative clauses ?

Mr Wordy · Answer

There may be BrE/AmE differences in preference here. I'm BrE.

A common style, and probably the safest, is to use "that" (with no commas) in defining clauses and "which" (with commas) in non-defining clauses:

"The book that I bought yesterday failed to live up to expectations." (defining)

"The book, which I bought yesterday, failed to live up to expectations." (non-defining)

Some people are happy using "that" and "which" interchangeably in defining clauses, and letting the punctuation alone (or lack of it) signal the type of clause intended.

The use of "that" in non-defining clauses (as in your original example sentence) is less common and it can seem sloppy or casual. I wouldn't recommend it. For some reason that I can't quite pinpoint, it seems better to me in your original sentence than it does in my simpler example sentence above.

Seloc@n · Answer

thank you for the enlightening posts about the subject I opened. Personally I am in favor of old and elegant english sources to grasp the subject in English in that they are original and non-profit sources.

Relative clause and that

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