a "thats" possessive on the national news

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

I have been saying this all my life. It sounds informal to me; in formal writing, I would have to say, "the waistline of which". But "whose" for an abstract or nonhuman entity sounds "wrong."

Sent from my iPad

On Mar 25, 2011, at 10:39 PM, Neal Whitman <nwhitman at AMERITECH.NET> wrote:

> Great catch!
>
> I wrote about my son unapologetically using possessive "that's" here:
> http://literalminded.wordpress.com/2011/03/23/we-dont-speak-the-same-language/
> A linguist on Twitter even tweeted "I'm with your son on that's over whose"
> after reading the post. I'm amazed how strongly this analogy is catching on.
>
> Neal
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Laurence Horn" <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Sent: Friday, March 25, 2011 10:04 PM
> Subject: a "thats" possessive on the national news
>
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail
>> header -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>> Subject:      a "thats" possessive on the national news
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> On ABC's World News Tonight tonight, reporter Ryan Owens, in Austin
>> TX commenting on the correlation between church-going and obesity,
>> referred to
>>
>> "...a megachurch thats waistline is growing as fast as its congregation"
>>
>> I don't think I've ever heard one of these in "mainstream" use of this
>> kind.
>>
>> LH
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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