[David Muller]

I came across this recently and thought you might be interested. Those little rules a native English speaker knows instinctively.

 

[Val Gyde]

Yes, I agree this is a fascinating area. It’s great to find out why we say things the way we do!

Val

[Dick Ward]

Fascinating. It’s a reminder that sometimes reading a sentence or phrase aloud is the best way to tell whether it is correct or not.

In the case of British English it is possible to use both ‘which’ and ‘that’ at the start of a restrictive clause, and Oxford Language Reference says as part of its explanation that ‘which’ often sounds better (my emphasis) to start a clause that adds significant information, e.g. ‘Not nearly enough for the social position which they had to keep up’ (DH Lawrence).

It also adds that clauses  which are separated from their antecedent, especially by another noun, sound better with ‘which’, e.g. Larry told her the story of the young airman which I narrated  at the beginning of this book.’ (W Somerset Maugham).