There’s a trend I’ve noticed in several writers’ work that I find to be rather strange. In a situation where I would naturally use “the,” the author uses either “this” or “that.” Let me give an example:
“The Austrians bombarded Belgrade for several days, before occupying that city.”
I don’t have the books with me at the moment, or I’d be able to provide more. Is this an actual convention? A style choice? Wrong? Right?
My guess is that “that” is used when it becomes grammatically necessary to make a distinction between multiple candidates that could serve as the object noun of the sentence. Like in the example above, if the author was talking about Prague at length previously and only first mentioned Belgrade in the above sentence, he might want to clarify that he’s now referring to Belgrade, not the other city he spent the last 4 paragraphs talking about.
If this situation does not describe the contextual usage that you’re seeing this phenomenon in, then I have no clue why writers are doing this. I guess it sounds a bit more stylish, if quirky.
It helps to clarify. In theory, they could be bombarding Belgrade, but occupying someplace else. “The city” could be unclear in the context. “That city” prevents confusion.
As described I think correctly used it adds clarity. What happens next is that people not quite as learned read this usage, and don’t understand the logical need for it but assume that since a fancy-pants person is writing it, it must be elegant. So it then gets used in places where it is not necessary.
Then again it’s hard to say what’s necessary. Here’s an example where it’s probably not strictly necessary but which alternative do you like best?
“The boy tried a taste of the coconut ice cream before he ordered that flavor.”
“The boy tried a taste of the coconut ice cream before he ordered the flavor.” Correct, I suppose, but seems a little strange to my ear. Are we sure what flavor he ordered, or did he just order some flavor?
“The boy tried a taste of the coconut ice cream before he ordered coconut ice cream.” Is there an echo in here?
“The boy tried a taste of the coconut ice cream before he ordered it.” Well, that seems to be clear. You could bend over backwards to say there is some ambiguity (what is the antecedent of “it”–coconut ice cream or just ice cream?) but I think virtually everybody would interpret this the same way.
I would have said, “The Austrians bombarded Belgrade for several days, before occupying it.” But I guess the writer didn’t think it sounded fancy-pants enough.
It is “a taste of the coconut ice cream”. In other words, the boy paid for an ice cream sample!
Perfect! Right on the first one. With grammar, sometimes one’s should go by gut instinct. Especially concerning ice cream.
Another example of authors eschewing pronouns. 