"of which...of"

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Fri May 18 23:55:14 UTC 2012


On May 18, 2012, at 5:17 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> Jerry Cohen asks me to forward the following:
>
>
>> From: Cohen, Gerald Leonard
>> Sent: Friday, May 18, 2012 8:27 AM
>> To: American Dialect Society
>> Subject: RE: "of which...of" (a blend)
>>
>> This is almost certainly a blend from:
>> "the cause of which the early mariner was still ignorant"
>> plus
>> "the cause which the early mariner was still ignorant of."
>>
>> Gerald Cohen
>>

This doesn't make sense to me, for the reason Barbara Need identified.  Which of the "of"s in "ignorant of the cause of the phenomena" would Jerry claim is otiose? Each "of" heads a different prepositional phrase, and if either is deleted, the sense can't actually be parsed.  To say, for example, "…numerous phenomena actually observed, the cause of which the early mariner was still ignorant" (as in the first putative "blendee" above) is to say that the early mariner was ignorant the cause of the phenomena.  To choose the second option is to say "…numerous phenomena, the cause which the early mariner was still ignorant of" is to say that the early mariner was still ignorant of the cause numerous phenomena.  I agree with Arnold that of…of constructions (one pied-piped, one stranded) are legion, and I agree with Jerry that syntactic blends are themselves legion, but this example doesn't illustrate either phenomenon.

LH


>>
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of
>> Jonathan Lighter [wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM]
>> Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2012 6:18 PM
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Subject: "of which...of"
>>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      "of which...of"
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Unless I miss my guess, this truly nonstandard construction is usually
>> associated with latter-day neophyte writers.
>>
>> However, here's a 1928 ex. from an academic writer that sailed through
>> copy-editing. I assume it was a slip of the pen:
>>
>>
>> 1928 Angelo S. Rappoport _Superstitions of Sailors_ (London: S. Paul) vii:
>> It may be attributed to three sources, viz.: Firstly, the interpretation
>> and explanation of numerous phenomena actually observed, but the cause of
>> which the early mariner was still ignorant of.
>>
>> JL
>>
>> --
>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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