which we're going to get through this

[Alison Murie]

On Jun 4, 2009, at 3:14 PM, Alison Murie wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Alison Murie <sagehen7470 at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: which we're going to get through this
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Jun 4, 2009, at 10:45 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
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>> 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
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Since I find my e-mail very often affected as to font, color, style,
by the mail programs of others posters,
I assumed that I could similarly dictate italicization on others'
mail.  I see I should continue to observe the ASCII
rules, as instructed long ago by m a m.  In the above post I tried to
italicize /which/ and /it/.
AM

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