ShmoopTube

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Here’s your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by spinnerets.

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The female counterparts to spinneros.

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How would you correct this underlined segment from the passage, if at all?

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that are extruded?

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And here are the potential answers...

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To “extrude,” is to force, press, or push something out, often through a hole.

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So it’s the perfect word to describe the way in which spiders force sticky stuff out

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of their spinnerets.

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OK, our stomachs just turned a bit. Let’s move on.

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The main beef between these answer choices is whether the word “that” or “which”

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is right for the sentence.

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It’s no surprise the answers disagree about this; misuse of these words is one the most

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common grammatical mistakes out there.

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Here’s the deal...

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“That” is used to introduce restrictive clauses.

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These are clauses that the sentence can’t do without. If removing a clause from a sentence

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changes the sentence’s meaning or omits something vital, we know we’re dealing with

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a restrictive clause.

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The word “which,” on the other hand, is used to introduce nonrestrictive clauses.

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These are clauses that can be removed from the sentence without changing the meaning.

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They’re additional information, extra spice if you will.

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In the sentence in question, the clause is totally restrictive.

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If the writer cut it, we’d have no idea how these proteins are extruded through spiders’ spinnerets to make silk.

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We hope this isn’t where our silk boxers came from.

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If so, they’re going in the trash as soon as we get home.

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Since the clause is restrictive, we know the word “which” is not required, and we can

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cross out options (B) and (C).

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This brings us to answers (A) and (D). Both correctly use “that” to introduce the

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restrictive clause, so we’ll have to find another way to narrow down our options.

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(D) uses the present progressive tense with “are extruding,” while (A) uses the simple

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present with “are extruded.”

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Out of the two, (A) is the best answer because the simple present can be used to talk about

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things that happen in general.

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(D)’s use of the present progressive makes it sound like the extruding is happening right now.

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Sure, spiders all over the world are currently weaving their webs, but the author is referring

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to the way in which they generally accomplish they’re web weaving.

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Anyway, we try not to think about the fact that spiders everywhere are weaving as we speak.

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What if they're working together to form one giant web to trap humankind?

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Laugh now, but only time will tell.

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