which its = "whose"

[Herb Stahlke]

I've heard sentences like

We were going to have a picnic Saturday, which it rained, so we stayed home.

I don't know what its regional distribution is, but most instances I've
heard have come from NW Ohio.

Herb


On Fri, Jun 13, 2014 at 3:39 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: which its = "whose"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Ah, I see the OED's entry at 14b, citing the same source inter alia:
>
> Hence, in vulgar use, without any antecedent, as a mere connective or
> introductory particle.
>
> 1723   Swift Mary the Cook-maid's Let. 13   Which, and I am sure I have
> been his servant four years since October, And he never call'd me worse
> than sweetheart, drunk or sober.
> 1862   Thackeray Philip xvi,   ‘That noble young fellow’, says my
> general... Which noble his conduct I own it has been.
> 1870   B. Harte Truthful James, Answ. to Let. viii,   Which I have a small
> favor to ask you, As concerns a bull-pup, which the same,—If the duty would
> not overtask you,—You would please to procure for me, game.
> 1905   Daily Chron. 21 Oct. 4/7   If anything 'appens to you—which God be
> between you and 'arm—I'll look after the kids.
>
> So is the current extended "mere connective or introductory particle" a
> revival of this?  I still feel as though the examples I'm not quite
> remembering are closer to "speaking of which", which "which" doesn't work
> too well as an introductory particle.  Although "By the way" may work
> pretty well too.
>
> LH
>
>
>
>
> On Jun 13, 2014, at 3:08 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
> > No fad.
> >
> > Bret Harte's once beloved "Plain Language from Truthful James" (1870)
> > begins - begins, mind you -
> >
> > Which I wish to remark,
> > And my language is plain,
> > That for ways that are dark
> > And for tricks that are vain,
> > The heathen Chinee is peculiar.
> >
> > Accident? Not on your bippy. Later:
> >
> > Which we had a small game,
> > And Ah Sin took a hand.
> >
> > Harte later called it "possibly the worst poem anyone ever wrote."
> >
> > It was, of course, frequently anthologized.
> >
> > JL
> >
> >
> > On Fri, Jun 13, 2014 at 2:34 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >> -----------------------
> >> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> >> Subject:      Re: which its = "whose"
> >>
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> This reminds me (though is probably unrelated to) another extended use
> of
> >> "which" as an unconnected headless relative (or maybe conjunction) I've
> >> been noticing that I'm sure someone has described (Ben? Arnold? Neal?).
> >> It's hard for me to remember instances, or find the ones I've jotted
> down,
> >> but they're something like this (googled) example:
> >>
> >> so we're looking at my OKCupid profile, which I don't know why this is
> as
> >> embarrassing as it is
> >>
> >> It might could be paraphrased as "speaking of which".  I tried searching
> >> Language Log but only got a lot of posts on "which" vs. "that", not
> "which"
> >> vs. "and", or whatever's going on here.
> >>
> >> Maybe it's a fad--must be the season of the "which".
> >>
> >> LH
> >>
> >> On Jun 13, 2014, at 1:36 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >>
> >>> Long ago I mentioned the difficulty even  grad students in English had
> 30
> >>> years ago with "whose" as a subordinating conjunction after something
> not
> >>> human, as in "an idea whose time has come." (Some online grammarians
> now
> >>> prefer the counter-rational "subordinate conjunction." Right.)
> >>>
> >>> One of the grotesque conjunctions the studes used was "which's."
>  Another
> >>> was the perhaps genetically identical "which its."
> >>>
> >>> Now grownups use it:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> http://cnn.org/2014/06/11/opinion/ben-ghiat-world-war-one/index.html?iid=article_sidebar
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> "the Submarine was introduced in the 19th Century by the French called
> >> the
> >>> Plongeur, Which its designs were used by the Confederates to build the
> >> H.L.
> >>> Hunley"
> >>>
> >>> JL
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> "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
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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