word choice - When it's OK to omit "where?"


When it's OK to omit "where?" For example, is it OK to omit it in the following sentence?



This is the one of the few places (where) you can breathe real air.



In which situations one's not allowed to do this?



Answer



You can generally omit where when the head noun suggests a place:



 1a. This is the one of the few places [ where you can breathe real air. ]
 1b. This is the one of the few places [ you can breathe real air. ]



Here, the head noun is place, which of course suggests a place. However:



 2a. This is the web page [ where the claim was first made. ]
 2b. *This is the web page [ the claim was first made. ]



Example 2b is ungrammatical because web page is unlikely to suggest a place.


(Examples 2a and 2b are taken from "A Student's Introduction to English Grammar" by Huddleston and Pullum, page 185.)



In this answer, * marks a sentence as ungrammatical in standard English.


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