"which we will get through this"

[Alice Faber]

Laurence Horn wrote:
> A currently airing commercial for Liberty Mutual Insurance--to
> illustrate the take-home message, "Every day, people choose to do the
> right ting. As an insurance company, we do too"--depicts a working
> class salt-of-the-earth type paterfamilias addressing his
> three-generation family around the dinner table in a strong regional
> (mountain/Southern) accent:
>
> "Things at work are...changing, just a little bit right now. There's
> been some layoffs, and I don't know far that's gonna go. Some of the
> promises that we made, your mother and I, they have to be put on hold
> for a while.  Now this can turn around, it can change.  But as of
> right now, we kinda gotta tighten the belt.  Which we *will* get
> through this."
>

And while we're at it, in more evidence of some kind of recency effect,
I don't recall ever having noticed this construction before. But
yesterday, while I was driving to a meeting, I had my XM on to the NHL
Home Ice channel. They were replaying the Commissioner's hour from
Thursday afternoon. Towards the end of the hour, he was chatting with
Dick Ebersol, the head honcho of NBC sports, about hockey coverage for
the upcoming Vancouver Olympics. Ebersol used the construction twice.
Since I was on the highway, surrounded by crazier than usual drivers, I
couldn't take notes, but neither instance sounded at all like any
syntactic false starts and self-correction were involved. (The only
on-line recording I could find of the show was a pod-cast, with no
indication of whether it included the entire hour or just a selection.)

--
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Alice Faber                                       faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                            tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
New Haven, CT 06511 USA                               fax (203) 865-8963

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