which its = "whose"
Amy West
medievalist at W-STS.COM
Mon Jun 16 12:45:22 UTC 2014
Because I'm Commander Obvious, is there thinking that this construction
is influenced by the dictum to use "who" only for referents that are
persons? Are you seeing any "that's"?
---Amy West
(I will confess to preferring "who" over "that" for the relative pron.
for persons just as a point of style, AND further confess to making that
comment on students' papers, but I do note that it's a point of style,
not "grammar.")
On 6/14/14, 12:03 AM, Automatic digest processor wrote:
> Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 13:36:15 -0400
> From: Jonathan Lighter<wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: which its = "whose"
>
> 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
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