which we're going to get through this

[Scot LaFaive]

>
> Could this be a regional rather than a class marker?


I don't believe I've ever heard it used around here (west central WI) and it
is completely foreign to me.

Scot

On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 9:11 AM, James Smith <jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       James Smith <jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: which we're going to get through this
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I've never noticed this use of "which", and have not seen the ad.  Could
> this be a regional rather than a class marker?
>
> James D. SMITH                 |If history teaches anything
> South SLC, UT                  |it is that we will be sued
> jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com     |whether we act quickly and decisively
>                               |or slowly and cautiously.
>
>
> --- On Wed, 6/3/09, Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
> > From: Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject: which we're going to get through this
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > Date: Wednesday, June 3, 2009, 8:44 PM
>  > There are a couple of TV ads on
> > currently featuring a working-class
> > guy telling his family, in one, and his son in the other,
> > that he may
> > get laid off.  In the family ad he saiys something
> > like "We may have
> > to postpone some promises, which we're going to get through
> > this."
> > Those are not the exact words, but the use of "which" is as
> > he uses it
> > in the ad.  I suspect the usage may be employed by the
> > writers as a
> > marker of class, and I've heard it before in sentences like
> > "We were
> > going to go on a picnic Saturday, which it rained."  I
> > don't remember
> > hearing it used much by college educated speakers.
> > The social
> > contexts have been working class.
> >
> > Wh-indefinite pronouns or question words started to show up
> > as
> > relative pronouns in the 10th c. under the influence of
> > Latin, but
> > with the demise of English as a written standard after the
> > Norman
> > Conquest, the shift disappeared until English once again
> > became a more
> > widely used written language in the late 13th c.  The
> > wh-relatives
> > came into literate, educated English between about 1300 and
> > 1600, with
> > a few changes in usage after that.  The King James
> > Version (1611)
> > translates the first phrase of the Lord's Prayer as "Our
> > father which
> > art in heaven," but since about the 18th c. "which" has not
> > been used
> > to refer to humans.
> >
> > The usage of wh-relatives does seem to be related to level
> > of
> > education, and I wonder if the use of "which" as a sort of
> > coordinating conjunction, as above, might be a
> > hypercorrection.
> > Speakers who don't have the professional class rules
> > governing "which"
> > know that some people use "which" in ways in which they
> > themselves
> > don't.  The "which" plus coordinate clause
> > construction arises as an
> > unsuccessful attempt to emulate those rules.  Treating
> > these sentences
> > in this way is a WAG.  I've searched the ADS-L
> > archives for postings
> > dealing with "which," and I found the usual "that" vs.
> > "which"
> > discussions, quite a few of them in fact, but none dealing
> > with the
> > coordinating usage.  Does anyone know of scholarship
> > that deals with
> > this construction?
> >
> > Herb
> >
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> >
>
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