which we're going to get through this

[Alison Murie]

On Jun 4, 2009, at 10:45 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: which we're going to get through this
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I can hardly believe that the records on this are so scanty.
>
> The construction may well be regional.  Despite Woody Allen,  I never
> noticed it in NYC speech.
>
> Bret Harte seems to use it  in his poem "Plain Language from
> Truthful James=
> "
> (1870).   He was imitating a California gambler's speech, but they
> came fro=
> m
> all over.
>
> JL
>
>
> On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 10:27 AM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu>
> wrote:
>
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>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
>> Subject:      Re: which we're going to get through this
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ------
>>
>> On Jun 4, 2009, at 6:38 AM, Jon Lighter wrote:
>>
>>> Herb wrote, " I don't remember hearing it used much by college
>>> educated
>>> speakers.  The social contexts have been working class."
>>>
>>> "Working class" may be correct, but I can't count the times I've
>>> read this
>>> construction on freshman themes since the '70s. And in speech, of
>>> course, it
>>> remains common.
>>>
>>> OTOH, conjunctive "which" in my experience means "and," though
>>> Herb's ex.
>>> sounds more like "but."  That would be new to me.
>>>
>>> Arnold undoubtedly knows of some analytical articles.
>>
>> i wish i did.  in fact, i've asked about literature on the subject
>> several times here on ADS-L!
>>
>> at the moment i have only two examples in my collection, but then i
>> came to collecting odd relative clauses only recently, and my
>> attention has mostly been focused on relatives with resumptive
>> pronouns in them and on "characterizing" restrictive relatives.
>>
>> reported on sci.lang 1/25/07:
>>  Imus : Actually I drank some green Bigalow tea, which I was
>> surprised at how good it was.
>>
>> Woody Allen, =93Tails of Manhattan=94, New Yorker 3/30/09, p. 29:
>>   =93Tell me about it,=94 Moe Silverman said. =93I played golf with
>> the
>> man in Florida, which incidentally he=92ll move the ball with his
>> foot
>> if you=92re not watching.=94
>>
>> arnold
>>
>> ~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm surprised that this (reasonably frequent) construction is
unfamiliar to any  adult American.
I think the error lies often, not so much in the which itself, but in
bringing in an it to serve as subject of the clause,
not realizing the job was taken.
AM

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