WHICH OR WHAT?
By Virginia Rounding
Expert Author
Article Date: 2003-05-05
It seems that the word ‘which' has rather fallen out of favour these days, to be replaced by ‘what'. A question like this one, which I came across in an ezine's trivia section recently, leaps out at me as just not sounding right:
‘What European country was the first to establish a system for health insurance for its workers?'
It seemed so clear to me that it should read: ‘Which European country was the first etc etc…?' that I felt I had to analyse why.
Principally, ‘which' is used to differentiate between things in a way that ‘what' isn't. For example, you would say ‘What is this?' or ‘What are these?', but when you're then looking at a number of things and trying to distinguish between them, you would say ‘Which of these things does so-and-so?' or ‘Which thing is this?' So ‘which' has to do with selecting one thing out of a number of things, whereas ‘what' is more likely to refer to one thing alone. Having asked the question ‘Which European country was the first to do this or that?', you might then ask ‘And what precisely did this country do?' ‘What' can be used correctly when referring to plural things, but ‘which' is more likely to be correct when you are evoking a comparison.
One rule of thumb, I think, is to determine whether the word ‘of' could be added to the question without making nonsense of it. It would still make sense to ask ‘Which of the European countries was the first?' whereas no one would ask (I hope) ‘What of the European countries was the first?'
Other examples of ‘which' and ‘what' questions might be:
‘What are you having for supper?' but ‘Which would you prefer for supper - fish or meat?' ‘What do you want to achieve with your online business?' but ‘Which affiliate program have you found most helpful to your business?' ‘What are the ways of making money online?' but ‘Which way is the most successful?'
I readily concede that this is not the most important grammatical point in the world - people will know what you mean if you use ‘what' when ‘which' might have been preferable - but for pedants like me (and there are plenty of us online) a ‘what' instead of a ‘which' leaps off the screen at us, and can make all the difference between our reading the text in front of us or deleting it immediately.
If you'd like me to check your copy for infelicitous ‘whats', do feel free to e-mail me at webmaster@virginiarounding.com
About the Author:
Virginia Rounding is a published writer whose website of
Internet Resources for Writers looks at additional ways for
writers to earn money, in the hope of making it possible
for them to keep writing without having to resort either to
full-time employment or to destitution. For a selection of
free resources or to subscribe to her new ezine Poetry
Competition Updates, go to
http://www.virginiarounding.com/links.html
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