Community Who / Community That

[dauphinblue]

Hello, I'm a bit confused which relative pronoun should I use after community?

Here's the example of the sentence :

You will meet a community (Who/ That) will ready to help you every time you feel stuck with your lesson.

Thanking you all in advance!

 

[Keith Bradford]

Please yourself. If you want to emphasise that community = people, then use who. If you see community as some abstract theory, use that. This may change from case to case; which do you feel is appropriate here?

 

[dauphinblue]

Hi Keith, could you please give some explanation about the meaning of "some abstract theory" you mentioned?

 

[Keith Bradford]

The question is this:

The word "community" is very vague -- it can mean anything from the entire European Union down to three hippies in a squat. If you are using the word "community" to mean a group of individual people, then you use "who" after it. If you are thinking of "community" as some large institution, like the EEC or some abstract theory like "the international community", then use "which".

In the case in #1 I rather think it's "who".

 

[dauphinblue]

I see.. Thanks for your help Keith!