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Subject:Re: The Associated Press Stylebook From:"Charles P. Campbell" <cpc -at- PRISM -dot- NMT -dot- EDU> Date:Sun, 6 Feb 1994 18:28:36 MST
Has "Ms. Thistlebottom" discovered any stylebooks that do _not_ prefer
"the man who" to "the man that"? She reduces the choice to a mere matter
of personal preference. Not taste--taste is (or used to be) a matter of
public discussion and tacit convention, though there haven't been many essays
called "On the Standard of Taste" recently.
I had thought that the purpose of a style guide was to express the taste of
an institution, so that members of and aspirants to membership in the
institution
could have a clear sense of expected behavior. Learning expected behaviors
is sometimes called "acculturation." Happens everywhere from street gangs
to learned societies.
Perhaps learning to prefer "the man who" to "the man that" is of about equal
significance with wearing your gimme cap frontwards or backwards. But its
XXXit's such distinctions that mark our memberships.
