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Many people are confused about the exact usage of the relative pronouns “that” and “which” in North American English. Which is correct and in what context? “That” is always used in a restrictive sense; that is, it defines or narrows a category or identifies an item in a group. A clause using the word “that” is necessary to the sentence or restricts the meaning. For example: The picture that has the gilt frame is up for auction. In this example, we’re told specifically that it is only the picture with the gilt frame up for auction and presumably no others. The clause “that has the gilt frame” defines which picture is up for auction.

Which dashes to use where is a subject of much annoyance and confusion to many writers. Most of us know that there are three common kinds of dashes, but how do we know when to use each of them properly? First, there’s the hyphen (-). The smallest member of the dash family, it’s used primarily for—rather obviously—hyphenation of compound words. If you follow this simple rule, you can’t really go wrong. It’s also used to separate numbers (such as in a phone number), or to separate letters in a word that is spelled out (H-Y-P-H-E-N).