Hold on. Not so fast. “That” is important,
even indispensable at times.
That belongs to a family of words called
relative pronouns that includes who and which.
Think of them as stunt doubles; after all,
they step in for a noun/antecedent (a person, place or thing). Chad Stahelski
and Dave Leitch were stunt doubles for The Matrix Reloaded.
And think of the writer as one of the Wacky
Wachowsky brothers, Andy or Larry, who scrutinized Stahelski and Leitch’s every
movement.
The writer decides which relative pronoun
belongs in each sentence or if it needs to be there at all.
It’s possible, but not always desirable, to
delete “that”. A litmus test is to read the sentence out loud. Does it read
smoothly without it? Does it make sense without it or will it leave the reader
guessing? If you have to read the sentence twice to understand it, than “that”
should be left in.
A reader may not be so determined: they may
quit reading.
Here’s a prime example from Lapsing Into
a Comma by Bill
Walsh: “He declared his love for her had died.” The reader is caught off guard,
if not disappointed, by the end of the sentence. They will do a double-take,
re-read it once, then shake their heads in confusion.
But, put “that” where it belongs — after
“declared” -- and the reader, while reaching for the Kleenex, will understand
the solemnity of the declaration.
Leave “that” in to avoid ambiguity or to
achieve parallel structure: “That is all I know and that is why I’m here.”
“That” stands in for things and sometimes
for people (“I like that girl”) and also introduces essential information to
the sentence. “The dog that bit you has been taken to the pound.” Do not
separate the noun/subject from essential information by inserting a comma.
Which is another stunt double that steps in
for animals or inanimate objects. “Which” introduces non-essential information
in a sentence (the sentence makes sense without the information) and the
noun/subject is almost always separated from the rest of the sentence by a
comma. The teacher’s apple, which had a worm in it, sat half-eaten on his desk
(the teacher left in a hurry).
Proper nouns such as the Eiffel Tower are
followed by “comma-which”, not by “that” because they already have an
established identity and the information following them is not needed to
identify them.
A third stunt double is “who”. “Who” always
steps in for people, but occasionally for specific animals (those with a name).
And who follows the same pattern as which and that: if the information that
follows “who” is essential to the identity of the noun (antecedent) that’s gone
before it, then no comma is used. “The teacher, who ate the apple, felt
suddenly ill.”
“Would the boy who gave up his apple please
stand up?”
Here’s a useful site:
www.grammar.uoregon.edu. And, just for fun, check out “stunts” at
www.anecdotage.com.