[Ads-l] weird "which"

Thu Jul 9 01:38:49 UTC 2020

 > it's disappearing from use.

Sad, but true. When I was in the Army, back in 1961, a fellow-GI, who was
from Cincinnata, casually asked me, "Have you noticed that the _h_ in
wh-words is not pronounced, anymore?" Back then, no, I hadn't noticed it
and I was annoyed by what he intended as a rhetorical conversation-starter.
I continued not to notice it, until someone expressed surprise, upon
hearing me say, "Chicago [hw]ich Hunt."

On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 10:22 AM Gordon, Matthew J. <GordonMJ at missouri.edu>
wrote:

> It was examined by Labov and colleagues for the Atlas of North American
> English (published in 2006 with data collected in 1990s). They found the
> distinction between /hw/ and /w/ scattered across the US with a
> concentration of distinguishers in the South. Their isogloss goes south
> from West Virginia to GA and has a narrow band that extends west to
> Lubbock. Map is on p. 50 if you have ANAE.
>
>
> I believe it's age-graded in their data. Their narrative definitely
> suggests it's disappearing from use.
>
>
> Matt
>
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of
> Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 8, 2020 9:09:44 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: weird "which"
>
> WARNING: This message has originated from an External Source. This may be
> a phishing expedition that can result in unauthorized access to our IT
> System. Please use proper judgment and caution when opening attachments,
> clicking links, or responding to this email.
>
> What is the isogloss?  Does anyone know?  It’s not grammatical enough for
> the Yale Grammatical Diversity Project, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be
> curious.  I’m sure it’s age-graded as well as regional, but I’d love to see
> a map.
>
> LH
>
> > On Jul 8, 2020, at 7:25 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> wrote:
> >
> > Everybody in these parts says / hw /
> >
> > Except me.
> >
> > JL
> >
> > On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 12:23 AM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
> > wrote:
> >
> >>> On Jul 8, 2020, at 12:17 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> these pun-based titles are almost inevitable
> >>>
> >>> Not so much, if you're a speaker of an idiolect that retains voiceless
> >> w. I
> >>> was amused by the crude attempt of the "Chicago _which_-hunt," till it
> >> was
> >>> pointed out to me that I may be the last, living native-speaker of
> >> English
> >>> to pronounce _wh_ as "hw,”
> >>
> >> Naah, there ’s a bunch of you.  I’ve been living with one for 43 years.
> >> But that wouldn’t *really* prevent you from grokking the puns in
> question,
> >> including the Great Chicago Which Hunt (their parasession volume on
> >> relative clauses back in the early ‘70s, for the uninitiated)
> >>
> >>
> >>> except in the case of _whoop_, pronounced
> >>> "hoop." Cf. cognate German _hupen_, as in the trallic-sign, _NICHT
> HUPEN_
> >>>
> >>> On Tue, Jul 7, 2020 at 9:52 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
> >> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> They can’t all be so interpreted.  A couple of earlier papers on it:
> >>>>
> >>>> Rudy Loock. 2007. “Are you a good which or a bad which?"
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>
> https://www.academia.edu/1436761/Are_you_a_good_which_or_a_bad_which_The_relative_pronoun_as_a_plain_connective
> >>>>
> >>>> Burke, Isabelle 2017. "Wicked Which: The Linking Relative in
> Australian
> >>>> English." Australian Journal of Linguistics, 37(3), 356-386.
> >>>> https://tinyurl.com/yb95mxyg
> >>>>
> >>>> Yes, these pun-based titles are almost inevitable, which we probably
> >> could
> >>>> have guessed that.
> >>>>
> >>>> LH
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> On Jul 7, 2020, at 9:23 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
> >
> >>>> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Not so weird, because it can be interpreted as a false start.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Unlike the opening line of Bret Harte's "The Heathen Chinee."
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I still say mine is the weirdest of whiches.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> JL
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Tue, Jul 7, 2020 at 9:15 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu
> >
> >>>> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> I forgot to mention during this thread that Sara Loss at Oklahoma
> >> State
> >>>>>> presented an excellent paper on this “which” (both resumptive and
> >>>>>> non-presumptive) at the most recent ADS annual meeting in New
> Orleans,
> >>>>>> A change in progress: connective “which”
> >>>>>> I don’t know if she’s publishing it, but there was a lot of nice
> >> Twitter
> >>>>>> data she collected for it.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> And here’s an older (well, last-century) example I noticed a while
> >> back.
> >>>>>> It’s from 1999, even though I hadn’t begin to notice these “which”es
> >>>> until
> >>>>>> much more recently.   In this weird and wonderful George Saunders
> >> story
> >>>>>> reprinted in the Dec. 30, 2019 issue,
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1999/06/21/i-can-speak
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> there’s this:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Or say your dog comes up and gives Derek a lick? You could make
> Derek
> >>>> say
> >>>>>> (if your dog’s name is Queenie), “QUEENIE, GIVE IT A REST!”  Which,
> >> you
> >>>>>> know what? It makes you love him more. Because suddenly he is
> >>>> articulate.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> (Derek is six months old, but equipped with an “I Can SpeakTM” mask
> >> that
> >>>>>> allows him to speak, sort of.)
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> LH
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> On Jun 23, 2020, at 6:41 PM, Bethan Tovey-Walsh
> >> <accounts at BETHAN.WALES
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Ah, okay; I see what you mean. Given what you’ve outlined, if it
> >> isn’t
> >>>>>> just an accidental omission of a word, perhaps this is a further
> step
> >> in
> >>>>>> normalising a kind of “conjunctive which”? It’s absolutely
> >> fascinating!
> >>>>>> Thanks for the example, and for unpacking how it differs from the
> >> type I
> >>>>>> cited.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> ___________________________________________________
> >>>>>>> Dr. Bethan Tovey-Walsh
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Myfyrwraig PhD | PhD Student CorCenCC
> >>>>>>> Prifysgol Abertawe | Swansea University
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> CV: LinkedIn
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Croeso i chi ysgrifennu ataf yn y Gymraeg.
> >>>>>>> On 23 Jun 2020, 13:35 +0100, Jonathan Lighter <
> >> wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
> >>>>> ,
> >>>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>>>> This seems even weirder to me, Bethan. The examples you give are
> of
> >> a
> >>>>>> kind
> >>>>>>>> familiar to me from my university teaching days in the late '70s.
> >>>>>>>> Whatever the syntactical explanation, both "whiches" can be
> replaced
> >>>> by
> >>>>>>>> (and defined as) 'but.' Exx. meaning 'and' are also possible.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> But the current case is not subject to an exclusively lexical
> >>>> analysis.
> >>>>>>>> The sentence might be normalized in these ways and maybe others:
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> 1. "Including a full-size leave-in elixir, which nine out of ten
> >> women
> >>>>>>>> said made their hair appear thicker and fuller in just one week!"
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> 2. "Including a full-size leave-in elixir, and nine out of ten
> women
> >>>>>> said
> >>>>>>>> it made their hair appear thicker and fuller in just one week!"
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> No. 2 is stylistically awkward but perfectly correct. But to get
> >> from
> >>>>>> one
> >>>>>>>> of these normal constructions to the Viviscal version requires a
> >>>>>>>> strange shift in understanding the meaning of "which." In No. 1
> the
> >>>>>> elixir
> >>>>>>>> is the focus; in No. 2 both the elixir and the comments are
> equally
> >> in
> >>>>>>>> focus.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> But the Viviscal version seems to focus equally on the elixir and
> on
> >>>> the
> >>>>>>>> hair. It feels like something between subordination and
> conjunction.
> >>>>>>>> A simple "and" or "but" won't fix it. And, as I suggested, it's
> >>>>>> appearance
> >>>>>>>> in a TV commercial is, well, astounding, because it suggests that
> a
> >>>>>> number
> >>>>>>>> of copywriters agreed that it sounded just fine.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> JL
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> On Tue, Jun 23, 2020 at 7:09 AM Bethan Tovey-Walsh
> >>>>>> <accounts at bethan.wales>
> >>>>>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> I've noticed this one a lot online, apparently from U.S.-English
> >>>>>> speakers
> >>>>>>>>> in particular. I suspect that it's a reanalysis of the standard
> >>>>>> "which" as
> >>>>>>>>> a relative pronoun into "which" as a conjunction meaning
> >>>> approximately
> >>>>>> "in
> >>>>>>>>> relation to which", "as a result of which", etc.. So instead of
> >>>>>>>>> understanding "which" as the object of the main clause, it's
> >>>>>> understood as
> >>>>>>>>> a conjunction linking a main clause to the preceding noun phrase.
> >>>> I've
> >>>>>> seen
> >>>>>>>>> quite a few examples along the lines of:
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> "She told me to go, which I was not going to do that."
> >>>>>>>>> "They said they were stealing, which my kids would totally not
> >> steal
> >>>>>>>>> anything."
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> It seems to me that the step from "[noun phrase], which I wasn't
> >>>> going
> >>>>>> to
> >>>>>>>>> do" to "[noun phrase], which I wasn't going to do that" is a
> fairly
> >>>>>> small
> >>>>>>>>> one. I'd be interested to hear your opinions.
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> BTW
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> ___________________________________________________
> >>>>>>>>> Dr. Bethan Tovey-Walsh
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Myfyrwraig PhD | PhD Student CorCenCC
> >>>>>>>>> Prifysgol Abertawe | Swansea University
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> CV: LinkedIn
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Croeso i chi ysgrifennu ataf yn y Gymraeg.
> >>>>>>>>> On 23 Jun 2020, 10:55 +0100, Jonathan Lighter <
> >>>> wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
> >>>>>>> ,
> >>>>>>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>> Weird to me, anyway, especially in a pricey, presumably
> carefully
> >>>>>> edited
> >>>>>>>>> TV
> >>>>>>>>>> commercial for a glamour hair product:
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>> "Including a full-size leave-in elixir which nine out of ten
> women
> >>>>>> said
> >>>>>>>>>> their hair appeared thicker and fuller in just one week!"
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>> JL
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>> --
> >>>>>>>>>> "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
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>>>>> 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
> >>>>
> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> -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
> >>>
> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>> 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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

-- 
-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

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org