a "thats" possessive on the national news

[Jonathan Lighter]

Allegedly from 1976 in GB (_not_ in dialogue): "It's an idea thats time has
come; in fact, it's an idea thats time has long been overdue."

Yet the billion words of GB turn up only two other exx., both in similar
publications and so perhaps from the same pen.

JL

On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 3:26 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: a "thats" possessive on the national news
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Google finds less than a dozen "idea which's time has come," though that
> was
> an occasional solution among the students.
>
> It does find 23,000 exx. of "idea which time has come," which was a quite
> popular solution.
>
> And over 300 exx. of "idea which its time has come," which I believe was
> the
> most popular erroneous solution of all. (Very oddly, only a single hit on
> "idea which it's time has come."
>
>
> I long ago indicated my surprise that in many thousands of student papers
> over many years (before grammar checkers and so forth), the barest
> handful ever contained a double modal construction, though most of these
> students were apparently saying "might could" every day.  And, less
> surprising, I don't believe I saw "ain't" used seriously on more than a
> single occasion.
>
> SWAG: "inanimate obj. + poss." has always been rare in natural speech (not
> sure why). That, combined with the purely theoretical discord of "whose,"
> has resulted in a somewhat moribund construction in both speech and
> writing.
>
> JL
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 12:30 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > Subject:      Re: a "thats" possessive on the national news
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > At 3/26/2011 11:32 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > >Good work, Joel.
> >
> > Oh dear.  As a prescriptivist, I was just intending to show that it
> > was *not* used frequently -- only about 15,000 raw (an appropriate
> > adjective?) Ghits.
> >
> > It's a shame 19th Century U.S. Newspapers won't let "that's"
> > pass.  Hidden prescriptivism?
> >
> > Going back to Google after this disappointment and trying "idea thats
> > time has come" (quoted but no apostrophe) -- for which Google asks me
> > " Did you mean: "idea that's time has come" " -- I find fewer Ghits:
> > about 2,370.  And leaving off "an", "idea that's time has come" rises
> > to about 25,900.  (Should these be added together?)
> >
> > Google News gives very few hits for "idea that's/thats time has come"
> > -- but some: around 75?  (I used both "Archives" and "Custom Range".)
> >
> > And none in Google News / Blogs??  Whose where I would expect to find
> > lot's of that's.
> >
> > Joel
> >
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>
>
>
> --
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>
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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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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org