I was recently talking to Jeff Larche, a colleague I met through my wife, Ashley, about the state of business and the publishing industry - and also of editing. He said something to me that I took rather kindly as a compliment (and I'm sure that's what he intended by it, too). He told me that he was glad that I wasn't an apologist.

What? You don't apologize? That's terrible! No, that's not what I mean (and the following definition isn't meant as an insult).

Wiktionary defines apologetics as:

apologetic (comparative more apologetic, superlative most apologetic)

Defending by words or arguments; said or written in defense, or by way of apology; regretfully excusing; as, an apologetic essay.

Here's Merriam-Webster's definition for the second opinion.

So what don't I defend? Writing & editing. More specifically, I don't defend writers and editors who function professionally with less than competent skill. I never have. Salman Rushdie speaks of an abundance of competency in the writing world - and there is - with a lack of true grace.

I feel that everyone - or at least most people - have the ability to learn how to write or edit with competency with even the basics of language knowledge. I don't feel, however, that everyone is meant to be a writer or an editor. Those are skills that take a great deal of time to hone and perfect and even over time we must continue to study and change our way of thinking. Apologizing for the state of bad writing or editing perpetuates it, and we have incidents where bad writers keep writing and bad editors feel like they can ridicule them for it. Bad writing needs to be taught out of people not excised. Treating it like a demon makes writers get defensive and editors get red in the face.

Writing and editing alike take a certain innate talent. Not everyone can be a writer (or editor), but a lot of people can perform very competently without needing to feel like they're *bad*.

It's November, and that means it's NaNoWriMo time again. Are you doing it? I'm attempting again.

In order to myself in gear, I've posted that I'll be fielding questions for anyone who's interested. Mostly it was meant for fans of speculative fiction, but my first question was one for grammar that I hadn't answered yet on this blog (mostly because others have before): what is the difference between which and that?

Here's the answer.

/That/ is generally used for information that is necessary for the information you're providing. Therefore, it's restrictive.

/Which/ is generally used for information that is in addition to the information already provided. In other words, it's nonrestrictive.

In short, /that/ is used when defining material. /Which/ is used when elaborating upon material without defining it.

For example:

The house next door, which I didn't know was vacant, burned down yesterday.

The house is defined as being both 'next door' and 'having burned down'. It's not necessary to know that the author didn't know it was vacant. That information is in addition to.

The house that burned down yesterday was vacant.

It's relevant to know what house was vacant. We restrict the clause /burned down yesterday/ with the use of /that/. In this case, we define the house as being 'the one that burned down'.

Another good discussion on the topic is here. It even has exercises. They also make a note about using Who in restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses. It's important to note that a lot of people misuse /which/ or /that/ in place of /who/. The latter two are used for things, /who/ is used for people. Give people the proper respect of being alive and requiring the pronoun /who/.

Thanks to Sydust on NaNo for the question. Keep them coming.

PS - I'll be answering genre-related questions over at my other blog for those who are keeping track of things.