[finder] which

[dot_fennel]

A few months ago I started noticing that in speech and sometimes print interviews, though not written prose, people were starting to occasionally join two complete sentences with the word "which", like so:

"Me and Spike have worked really hard together on this movie, which I'm really excited about getting it into theaters."

Every case I can remember would have been totally grammatical with the deletion of an "it" (or "him", etc.) from the second half of the sentence.

Now, here's the refrain from the first song on They Might Be Giants' upcoming album:

It's for this experimental film
Which nobody knows about and which
I'm still figuring out what's going to go
In my experimental film

And on first listen, the phrasing suggests Linnell really is doing the which-insertion thing, as opposed to there being a period after "figuring out" and a question mark at the end or whatever.

That said, the song also has the line "I already know how great it's" several times, in violation of a grammar rule I can't imagine anyone violating accidentally. So maybe it's a subtle joke.

Comments

[bluepapercup]

"Me and Spike..."

uuuuuargh.

[dot_fennel]

Hee hee. I know a lot of people that bothers, but to me it seems like an acceptable informal construction, not a mistake.

I mean, "acceptable", whatever. I wouldn't use it in a work email, even a casual one. It just doesn't grate on I.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

That definitely seems to fall into the realm of "subtle joke", to me. It's like they combined

It's for this experimental film which nobody knows about and which I'm still figuring out

and

I'm still figuring out what's going to go in my experimental film

which seems like a charming example of the way they phrase things. I feel like there should be another obvious example of this exact kind of overlapping construction rolling off ly fingers right now, but of course I can't think of a damned thing. All I can think of is the clapping-game about Miss Susie and her steamboat:

Miss Susie had a steamboat, the steamboat had a bell;
Miss Susie went to heaven and the steamboat went to
HELL-o operator, give me number 9,
and if you disconnect me, I'll kick you in the
BEHIND the 'frigerator there was a piece of glass;
Miss Susie sat upon it and it cut her big fat
ASK me no more questions...

... and so on, ad nauseam.

[dot_fennel]

That crossed my mind -- in fact, I feel like there's an example of that elsewhere in TMBG and I just can't think of it.

But in Miss Susie, there's always a strong accent on the first word of the part where you're supposed to reparse. In "Experimental Film" it's the opposite... accents on "which" and "going", right in the middle of clauses.

On the third hand, the album has a bunch of songs whose lyrics are constructed like chains (like "The House At The Top Of The Tree" on No!, for example) so it would be easy to think this was something like that, if only it fit better.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

In "Experimental Film" it's the opposite...

That just means they're more subtle than seven-year-old girls. ;)

I *will* think of that other example. I will I will. It's possible that I'm not thinking of TMBG at all, but rather another thing entirely that seems somehow in the same domain. Which could be, y'know, anything.

Anyway, my other impression is that they're too careful with their words to let something as clunky as that slip by. I think it'd have to be intentional, but then, I haven't heard it out loud.

Yay QWERTY keyboard!