SWAE relative "what"

[Lynne Murphy]

--On Wednesday, August 16, 2006 11:22 pm -0500 Greg Pulliam
<pulliam at IIT.EDU> wrote:

> The T and the W are three keys apart--doesn't seem like a typo to me.
> Maybe some other type of error, though.
>
> Still, relative "what" is so common in so many dialects, it seems
> likely to penetrate SWAE sooner, not later.

I don't think the distance of the keys determines whether it's a typo or
not.  I frequently type 'ing' when I mean to type 'ion' at the end of a
word, just because it's a familiar typing pattern.  One's probably more
likely to do such things at the end of a word rather than the beginning,
but I wouldn't rule out the typo explanation.

It could also be a blend error:
Write down one thing a week that you're thankful for.
Write down once a week what you're thankful for.

Relative pronoun 'what' (or 'wot') strikes me as really, really British--I
didn't know it was found in US dialects.  But here it's so far from
standard that it would only be used humorously in a newspaper.  There's a
discussion of it on one ESL forum where it's described as "very council
estate"
<http://www.englishforums.com/English/RelativePronounDefinitionRuns/brprl/Post.htm>

Lynne


Dr M Lynne Murphy
Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and English Language
Arts B133
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QN

phone: +44-(0)1273-678844
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com

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