SWAE relative "what"

[Wilson Gray]

"What" as a relative is quite common, here in the Colonies. It's a
well-known feature of Southern English and especially of Black
English, at least among the lower orders.

-Wilson

On 8/17/06, Lynne Murphy <m.l.murphy at sussex.ac.uk> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Lynne Murphy <m.l.murphy at SUSSEX.AC.UK>
> Subject:      Re: SWAE relative "what"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> --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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