Home > Thoughts/Observations > The inside Write Stuff – delete nonstructural relative pronouns that lead off clauses
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The inside Write Stuff – delete nonstructural relative pronouns that lead off clauses

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According to Gerald Lebovits, in the NYSBA Journal, July/Aug. 2006 at 53, if you want your writing to be more concise, spot and remove nonstructural relative clauses.

(1) Our widget group believes its customer owes them $500,000.

(2) Our widget group believes that its customer owes them $500,000. The relative clause must be included because it is part of the structure of the sentence. The group didn’t believe the customer, it believed the relative clause phrase.

(3) We hope that the environmental group will appreciate the cost.

(4) We hope the environmental group will appreciate the cost. The relative clause should be stricken, because it is nonstructural. No one “hopes” a group.

You can strike the nonstructural “who,” “who are,” “who is,” “whoever,” “whom,” “whomever,” “which,” “that”, “that were,” and other variations.

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One response to “The inside Write Stuff – delete nonstructural relative pronouns that lead off clauses”

  1. SAM says:
    October 31, 2006 at 8:18 am

    I’m not a member of the NY bar, so I need to track down this NYSBA article at a law library. I understand that the author has been writing a long-running column for the NYSBA Journal. That said, are we to remove nonstructural relative “clauses” or nonstructural relative “pronouns.” More important, the examples that you use don’t seem to be relative clauses. Instead, they seem to be noun clauses serving as direct objects (“believe what?” “hope what?”)that are merely introduced by “that.” In these situations, the “that” may or may not be deleted. I’d keep the “that” in both of your sample sentences. Still, I need to track down the article.