another connective "which"

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Jul 2, 2009, at 8:50 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

> At 7/2/2009 11:15 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>> A message quoted by a colleague on another list today.  It shows
>> just how
>> loosely "which" can be used in informal, nonstandard educated
>> writing.
>>
>> "You can see them [viz., notable mountains: JL] from the Asylum,
>> which after
>> the Asylum closed it became a prison and is now beautiful condos."
>
> Jon is more generous than I would be ("educated writing").  I would
> expect (or demand?):
>
> "You can see them [viz., notable mountains: JL] from the Asylum,
> which after
> it closed became a prison and is now beautiful condos."

this re-writing makes it clear that the problem with the original
isn't the "which" (which is a relative pronoun with an antecedent),
but the resumptive pronoun "it" instead of a gap (and the odd
repetition of "the Asylum").

arnold

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