which knows

Hello,
An easy thing for you ;-)

The original sentence would be:
Everyone knows this problem.

However, I would like to write it this way:
This is an old problem which everyone knows.
Is this already correct?

If I would write it this way, I think the sense would be different:
This is an old problem which knows everyone.
To me this sounds as if the problem would know everyone.
I hope you can get my point...
(The problem is not a person, it cannot know anything. - if this helps)

Cheers!

Nightmare85 said:

An easy thing for you ;-)

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Don't start a thread like this, what if we couldn't figure it out, it's distressing.

Nightmare85 said:

This is an old problem which knows everyone.

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Run for your lives! The old problem walks the earth! :shock:

Sounds strange...

As far as I understand your question is;

"This is an old problem which everyone knows.
Is this already correct?"

I'd prefer "that" but as discussed on this forum several times, it'd be correct even if it was a restrictive clause.A comma would be incorrect,so let it stay this way.But I guess the prescriptives would say that using "which" here is incorrect

Okay,
I just thought it's easy for you, but okay...

If I have correctly understood you, the sentence would be better this way:
"That is an old problem which everyone knows." ?

And yes, your "run for your lives!" was similary to my thought

Thanks.

Cheers!

Nightmare85 said:

If I have correctly understood you, the sentence would be better this way:
"That is an old problem which everyone knows." ?

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No, I meant replacing which with that

In reality, people generally know about problems.
"This is an old problem which everyone knows about.

Did you know about the problem at the time?
Tell me about your problem.
I couldn't fix the problem because I knew nothing about it.

The original sentence would be:
Everyone knows this problem.

However, I would like to write it this way:
This is an old problem which everyone knows.

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One other small problem is that your revised sentence has added that the problem is old. The original statement could refer to the the earthquake in Haiti, which isn't old. Similarly, adding "about" makes sense to me, but what if the orignal sentence meant to say "Every one knows of this problem"?

Yes, I made a small mistake.
The original sentence did not contain the word old.
(I forgot to add it.)

I think I will stick to Raymott's about.

Thanks.

Cheers!

timmpage said:

Similarly, adding "about" makes sense to me, but what if the orignal sentence meant to say "Every one knows of this problem"?

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I'd say 'about' and 'of' mean pretty much the same thing here.