[Ads-l] Heard: "thats" < _whose_

[Neal Whitman]

I’ve now heard it so much that I’ve stopped tracking it.

> On Nov 3, 2017, at 7:32 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> For any newcomers here, I brought this up many years ago.
> 
> After I found it in a student theme, I did a little research and discovered
> that even some *graduate students in English* would write it in the blank
> in "This is an idea ______ time has come" and similar sentences.
> 
> It was ca1984.
> 
> JL
> 
>> On Fri, Nov 3, 2017 at 12:34 AM, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> On Thu, Nov 2, 2017 at 11:48 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> On 'Monsters Inside Me,' the narrator speaks:
>>> 
>>> "The source of the rash is diagnosed as poison oak, a plant _thats_
>> leaves
>>> can cause an allergic reaction."
>>> 
>>> The rash was, in fact, a symptom of schistosomiasis.
>>> 
>>> Youneverknow.
>>> 
>> 
>> Reminiscent of a similar example Wilson brought to our attention back in
>> 2011: "I've a 24" 2.4Ghz iMac _that's_ hard drive recently packed in."
>> 
>> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2011-
>> February/thread.html#106816
>> 
>> 
>> That thread inspired Neal Whitman to write about "that's" in this piece for
>> the Visual Thesaurus:
>> 
>> https://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/dictionary/gear-up-for-
>> national-grammar-day/
>> 
>> James Harbeck in turn picked up on this, writing about apostrophe-less
>> "thats" used as a relative possessive pronoun.
>> 
>> https://theweek.com/articles/441268/future-english-
>> includes-apostropheless-thats
>> 
>> --bgz
>> 
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> 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