I've read the 'incredibly useful tip' for remembering which to use and when, stating: If the meaning of the sentence is changed by removing the words that follow, use 'that') but that makes about as much sense to me as complex mathematics. If you remove the words that follow you're left with an unfinished sentence. In my case either, 'the drizzle that ...' or 'the drizzle which ... ' so how is that supposed to help me in understanding which to use?? The line in question is: 'the drizzle that floats on the air' Is that right or should it be 'which' ?
Dunno. That, maybe. Probably, but as it's the last part of the whole sentence I didn'#t think it would matter.
I think the grammar rule is that which is for non-defining clauses. So if the point of your sentence is that the drizzle is floating on the air, use that. If it's not, use which. So: The drizzle that floats on the air - this sentence is defining the drizzle by how it floats, so we use that. The drizzle, which floats on the air, was soaking him through - this sentence is defining the drizzle by how it's soaking the character, so we use which. The shortcut I use is if a clause is going to be surrounded by commas, I use which, and otherwise, use that. I'm not sure if that's accurate all the time, but it certainly seems to be a pretty good starting point. In your case, since this clause is right at the end of the sentence and the only thing you're saying about the drizzle is that it's floating, I'd use that.
I guess that makes more sense described that way, as I've always struggled with this, too. For some reason, I thought I had heard once that "which" is for animate objects (people, etc) and "that" is for inanimate, so every time I felt I should use "which" for describing something involving, say, a building, or a tree, I was wondering if that was even correct. Even as a native English speaker, English grammar does my head in. Most of it either makes no sense, or the way people go about explaining/describing it is overly complicated. My biggest gripe is people and books describing English grammar rules using grammar terms. It's like its own language, just like math, and that's never been helpful for me. So explaining the rules in PLAIN ENGLISH is the best anyone can do unless if they are an English/writing major/professor. Anyway, rant over!
The drizzle that floats on the air is the only drizzle I care about. The drizzle, which floats on the air, is everywhere. For "that", you're getting vital information that's necessary to have the sentence make sense (without the "that floats on the air", there'd be no point to the sentence.) For "which", it's a little extra information about the drizzle, but it's not essential to the meaning of the sentence. You could say "the drizzle is everywhere" and still get the gist of it. It ties in with @NigeTheHat 's mention of parenthetical commas. I'm not sure if "which" is always set off by parenthetical commas, but the that/which rule is similar to the comma rule, for sure. The girl, whose hair was braided, ran fast - parenthetical commas show that her braided hair is just a little extra detail, not the point of the sentence. The girl whose hair was braided ran fast - no commas means the braided hair is key to the sentence. We're learning which of the girls ran fast, using the hairstyle as a defining feature.
I'm almost certain I've heard the 'inanimate object' logic, too. Oh, and I couldn't agree more with your rant about grammar tutorials and explanations.
It's what drove me insane when I was learning German in university. They'd throw these terms "dative", "genetive", etc. around to describe how words would get affected and changed in a sentence, but that just made it harder for me to grasp. Because "dative" and "genetive" told me absolutely nothing about what I needed to know. Just hearing those terms gave me no clues as to why it was important. They were just words to me. And don't get me started on "adverbs", a term I still don't remember what it's supposed to mean. Doesn't help that "adjective" has a similar start to its word.
I'll die never fully understanding the various types of speech. As for the more complex ones... forget it.
