"a day that [date which] will live in infamy"

[Joel S. Berson]

At 6/3/2012 12:02 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:

>On 6/1/12, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> > And Roosevelt was correct to use "which".
>
>Yes, he was. Are there people now saying that he was, somehow,
>incorrect?!

Somewhere, at some time, I was involved in ... discussion of the
difference between "a day that" and "[December 7, 1941,] a date
which".  Both of which are grammatically correct, but only one of
which Roosevelt actually said.

>That's amazing!

Yes.  GBooks alleges:
"date which will live in infamy" = 8,000 [actually said by Roosevelt]
"date that will live in infamy" = 6,960
"day which will live in infamy" = 3,780
"day that will live in infamy" = 15,900 [grammatical, but not said]

(Some counted dually, inevitably.)

Joel

>But,
>
>Youneverknow.
>
>--
>-Wilson
>-----
>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to come
>from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>-Mark Twain
>
>
>On 6/1/12, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > Subject:      Re: "a day that will live in infamy" (in a positive way)
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > At 6/1/2012 10:32 PM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
> >>On Jun 1, 2012, at 7:20 PM, Larry Horn wrote:
> >> >
> >> > According to Bobby Ojeda, announcer and himself former New York
> >> Mets pitcher, on the Mets' post-game show tonight, that's the
> >> legacy of tonight's game, after Johan Santana completed the first
> >> no-hitter in the 50-year history of the Mets.  Nothing infamous (in
> >> the traditional sense) about the game or the day; it's just a
> >> bleaching, like that of "notorious" = 'famous', facilitated of
> >> course by the FDR tag line for Pearl Harbor, but unlike Bobby O.,
> >> Roosevelt really *meant* it back in Dec. '41.
> >>
> >>of course, the original is "a day which will live in infamy".  that
> >>was before CMOS got to it.
> >
> > 1)  Of course, the original is "a *date* which will live in
> > infamy."  (And Roosevelt was correct to use "which".  But that's
> > another story.)
> >
> > ...
> >
> > Joel

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