a "thats" possessive on the national news

[Joel S. Berson]

At 3/26/2011 09:14 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>Amazing all around.
>
>If it's been as common for many decades as alleged, the failure of the OED
>and others to notice it should give us all pause.
>
>Shouldn't there be plenty of printed evidence in fiction?  If not, why not?
>
>My impression is that constructions involving "inanimate obj. + poss." are
>relatively uncommon in speech and writing to begin with. That would
>encourage the astonishing muddle I found in graduate student attempts to use
>the relevant "whose" properly  25 years ago.
>
>Many had trouble filling in the blank in the "giveaway" ex.:
>
>"It's an idea _____ time has come."
>
>As I may have said once before, it's time for someone to repeat the
>experiment. (If they have, what were the results?)

My experiment -- Google "an idea that's time has come"
(quoted):  "About 15,000 results (0.23 seconds)".

Perhaps an idea worth the time it took.  And repeated, it took 0.06 seconds.

P.S. "An idea whose time has come" (quoted): "About 974,000 results
(0.21 seconds)".

Joel


>One might think that "...what so proudly we hailed...whose broad stripes and
>bright stars" might have implanted the construction in infant minds, but
>the sentence is so complicated that undoubtedly many adults still can't
>figure it out.
>
>JL
>
>On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 8:00 AM, <ronbutters at aol.com> wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       ronbutters at AOL.COM
> > Subject:      Re: a "thats" possessive on the national news
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > 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
> > >>
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> > >
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> > > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
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> >
>
>
>
>--
>"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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