which its = "whose"

[Laurence Horn]

I believe we've discussed "thats" here (I prefer the spelling without apostrophe; always hard to decide when the alternatives are all officially ruled out) in the past, and there may have also been blog posts on Language Log, Arnold's blog, or elsewhere.  It's a lot more common than you might think.  There is also, of course, the resumptive pronoun version, also officially ungrammatical but not unheard of:  "an idea that its time has come" or, more likely, "the guy that you were dancing with her girlfriend last night".

LH

On Jun 16, 2014, at 8:58 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> I clearly recall a "that's" or two in a student theme, but only from one
> student. It was almost precisely thirty years ago.
>
> However, when pressed to fill in the blank in "This is an idea _______ time
> has come," a number of students used "that's".  (ISTR that "whose"
> responses were only a notable minority.)
>
> Ordinarily, I think they'd avoid the construction entirely.
>
> JL
>
>
> On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 8:45 AM, Amy West <medievalist at w-sts.com> wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Amy West <medievalist at W-STS.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: which its = "whose"
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Because I'm Commander Obvious, is there thinking that this construction
>> is influenced by the dictum to use "who" only for referents that are
>> persons? Are you seeing any "that's"?
>>
>> ---Amy West
>>
>> (I will confess to preferring "who" over "that" for the relative pron.
>> for persons just as a point of style, AND further confess to making that
>> comment on students' papers, but I do note that it's a point of style,
>> not "grammar.")
>>
>> On 6/14/14, 12:03 AM, Automatic digest processor wrote:
>>> Date:    Fri, 13 Jun 2014 13:36:15 -0400
>>> From:    Jonathan Lighter<wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>>> Subject: which its = "whose"
>>>
>>> Long ago I mentioned the difficulty even  grad students in English had 30
>>> years ago with "whose" as a subordinating conjunction after something not
>>> human, as in "an idea whose time has come." (Some online grammarians now
>>> prefer the counter-rational "subordinate conjunction." Right.)
>>>
>>> One of the grotesque conjunctions the studes used was "which's."  Another
>>> was the perhaps genetically identical "which its."
>>>
>>> Now grownups use it:
>>>
>>>
>> http://cnn.org/2014/06/11/opinion/ben-ghiat-world-war-one/index.html?iid=article_sidebar
>>>
>>>
>>> "the Submarine was introduced in the 19th Century by the French called
>> the
>>> Plongeur, Which its designs were used by the Confederates to build the
>> H.L.
>>> Hunley"
>>>
>>> JL
>>
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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