Talk:which's

RFD

Looks like no one actually posted anything about the Request for Deletion on the RFD page, or if they did, it's buried in an archive. Let me post here to vote to disagree with the RFD--I found this article interesting, and it lead me to confirm that the correct word in my case was "whose."

And if the RFD is old, someone should remove the tag. I would, except I'm just passing through and don't want to do something hasty without checking further into the issue. Cluth 15:12, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

This term passed RFD. Somehow, the archived discussion didn't make it here. Copying it here, now. Rod (A. Smith) 20:56, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

The following information passed a request for deletion.

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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Wiktionary shouldn't include any possessives at all, let alone incorrect ones. —This unsigned comment was added by Jooge (talk • contribs) 2007-07-30T04:43:28.

This vote seems to be heading toward exclusion of such entries. Note, though, that “’s” does not change the case of the preceding word, but that of the preceding phrase, so there is nothing ungrammatical about “which’s”:

The vote’s end date approaches.

The vote of which we spoke yesterday’s end date approaches.

The vote we spoke yesterday of which’s end date approaches.

Rod (A. Smith) 15:46, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I think which's would be one of the exceptions discussed in that vote, since it is indeed an irregular way of saying of "whose" or "which one's", a correct pronoun. If you see a stack of books each belonging to one of a number of classes of philosophy, you might generically say of a particular book in the stack, "which's is that" (when really you mean which one's"). bd2412 T 16:00, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

There is something ungrammatical about it if "of" is removed from your example. I don't see how anyone could argue that something nonstandard is unidiomatic. If it's not an idiom then it should be legitimate. DAVilla 17:40, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

It's more than just "irregular", it's highly non-standard. The word which is a relative pronoun and shouldn't be possessive at all. A search of Wikisource turned up *NO* examples of which's in any of their source documents. --EncycloPetey 17:25, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

How can I repeat your search of Wikisource for that term? MediaWiki's search mechanism doesn't seem to handle apostrophes well. Rod (A. Smith) 18:00, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Never mind. Google search suffices. The following words are also not in WikiSource:

• headword
• enclitics
• search's

Clearly, "headword", "enclitics", and "search's" are not "highly non-standard". The corpus is too small. Rod (A. Smith) 18:13, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

A general search of the internet for which's turns up about 70,000 hits. From a survey of the first few pages, it is apparent that most (possibly all) of these are either contractions for "which is" or are misspellings of "witch's" (as in "which's brew"). --EncycloPetey 21:01, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

“which's” in the noun-clause-final sense is now cited. Rod (A. Smith) 21:58, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

The “noun-clause-final sense” is unidiomatic and ought to be removed (however, I’ll wait until the 5^th day of August, at which point the WT:VOTE becomes official, before doing so myself). I can see some good in retaining the definition for the non-standard sense synonymous with whose; however, at present, only one’s is exempt — you will need to ask for and justify a policy exception for this sense of which’s here. Two of the definitions for this word are incorrect — firstly, it has nothing to do with being an “epicene alternative” as whose is itself already epicene, and secondly, the contractional sense is not a misspelling (it may be non-standard, but its use is quite intentional). † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 08:42, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Many English speakers wince at “which’s”, feeling compelled to hypercorrect the noun-clause-final sense to “whose”. So, we should retain that sense, despite its lack of idiomacy. Rod (A. Smith) 15:57, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

General grammar

isn't the second meaning derived from the general rules of grammar? --Backinstadiums (talk) 00:51, 29 February 2020 (UTC)