"I always thought I'd be that girl that lives with no regrets. I have regrets." - Courtney Love
Courtney has used an incorrect relative pronoun. In the noun phrase "girl that lives with no regrets," the relative pronoun "that" refers to "girl." This is incorrect because "that" should be used to refer only to animals and things. The relative pronoun "who" should be used to refer to a person.
This version of Courtney's statement corrects the pronoun error:
"I always thought I'd be that girl who lives with no regrets."
3 Comments
Very nice work with language here!
I wonder, in addition to the wrong grammar you point out in the Courtney and Hugh post, for example, could these two grammar mistakes also be examples of these celebrities each making an embedded (and deep) freudian slip? Courtney by likening a girl to an animal or thing, and Hugh by making that literal suggestion about his wife?
Very interesting!
It is all right to use the relative pronoun "that" to refer to people as well as for objects and animals. So "that girl that lives with no regrets " is correct. The pronoun "who" is mostly used to describe people but it is also correct to use the pronoun "that" in this case - "girl that…"
Joan:
Yes, in many contexts it is perfectly acceptable to use "that" in reference to people. However, this site is geared towards preparing students to take standardized examinations and write according to the rules of standard American English. The use of the relative pronoun "that" to refer to a person or group of people is not acceptable according to these rules.
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