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

[Jonathan Lighter]

Well, brace yourself.

Other respondents wrote "which its" and "which's."

(There was also a unique "whiches," IIRC. Fortunately I haven't found one
online, but it's hard to search for.)

JL

On Fri, Nov 3, 2017 at 8:32 AM, Neal Whitman <nwhitman at ameritech.net> wrote:

> 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
>



-- 
"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