On Monday, 5 June 2006 at 18:30:19 +0000, Andrea Campi wrote: > On Mon, Jun 05, 2006 at 08:52:21AM -0700, Kevin Oberman wrote: >>>>> Shouldn't that be "Which colour?" or even "Which color?" *duck* >>>> >>>> I don't think so. Why should it? >>> >>> Somewhere in my brain there's this notion that if one is choosing amongst a >>> set of items one should use 'which' rather than 'what', e.g. 'which floor' >>> in >>> an elevator rather than 'what floor'. >> >> Would someone with a copy of "Elements of Style" look this up and paint >> the damned shed! > > My copy of "Practical English Usage" (great book, BTW) says: > > Which and what are often both possible, with little difference of > meaning. Which is preferred when the speaker has a limited number of > choices in mind. When the speaker is not thinking of a limited number > of choices, what is used.
Excellent advice, apart from the use of the passive. This is very close to what I had decided to answer jhb, with a reference to the GUI problem: - "which" is a menu selection. - "what" is a synthesis. I was certainly not planning to restrict myself to a choice from a menu, so "what" seems appropriate. Greg -- See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
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