Use of its, who, which..

One caveat: Some papers treat all mascot names as plural, even the "singlular" mascot names such as Jazz, Heat, etc.

 

It's whom when you use it as an object.

Ryan used me as an object.

 

Ryan used me, too.

 

Ryan who? Ryan Sonner? Quit with the bragging!

 

platini, don't feel bad. I'm 50 ... got "its" and "they" nailed down at 30 ... and still have problems with "that" and "which."

"Its" and "they" is a lot easier to reason out, to me, anyway.

And I've been editing copy for 25 years. (Bet that winds up another Web site somewhere.)

 

That/which: Always been told to use that, whenever possible.

Isn't which usually preceded by a comma?

 

Yes. Use which for non-essential clauses (i.e. those set off by commas). Use that for essential clauses.

 

Which should always be preceded by a comma.

You use that to add essential information, information without which the meaning of the sentence would be unclear.

So if you had a pile of dogs and you wanted to identify one of them, you would write "The dog that is brown will bite you if you get near him."

If you had one dog, and you wanted to provide some information about him, you would write "My dog, which is brown, likes to chew slippers."

 

I would write, "The brown dog will bite you if you get near him."

 

I knew someone would do that.

 

I always get then/than mixed up.

(Hi Moddy!)