DonPaw wrote:We finally returned all the books to the library, which we left at the front desk.


Can someone plz share his/her views on above sentence. What's wrong with this sentence. I made following changes and not sure whether its right or wrong.

We finally returned all the books to the library, those we left at the front desk.

- those is not correct usage here.

We finally returned all the books to the library, which we left at the front desk. - The problem is usage of "which". WHICH always refers to what is prior to COMMA i.e. in this case it is "library". So, "which" does not make any sense coz you cannot leave library at the front desk rather sentence means to say for "BOOKS".

Correct : We finally returned all the books, which we left at the front desk, to the library.

sumanr84 wrote:Correct : We finally returned all the books, which we left at the front desk, to the library.

I will rather say
We finally returned all the books,that we left at the front desk,to the library.

that is for Restrictive Clause

remove that from sentence.
Does it make difference yes it does...
we are not returning the books of cupboard .....but only books that were in floor

so i think 'that' sounds better here...

frank1 wrote:

sumanr84 wrote:Correct : We finally returned all the books, which we left at the front desk, to the library.

I will rather say
We finally returned all the books,that we left at the front desk,to the library.

that is for Restrictive Clause

remove that from sentence.
Does it make difference yes it does...
we are not returning the books of cupboard .....but only books that were in floor

so i think 'that' sounds better here...

If "that" is used in this case, comma before that is not correct.

Use of that as restrictive clause:

=> We use that in case of restrictive clause. In that case that clause defines the term that is used before that.

Example:
I live in a city that is the capital of India.
=> The city is defined by that clause.