Grammar that makes you cringe

[citoyen]

Not sure I'd go so far as to say this one makes me cringe but it always jars slightly:

"from whence"

I've recently finished reading Pickwick Papers and in that book, Dickens makes this error quite often. Though not consistently, which leads me to wonder if it's really him or the editor.

d.

[Auntie Helen]

Not grammar as such but it looked wrong.

A blackboard outside a house offering "Planted planters"

[Peter]

Not sure I'd go so far as to say this one makes me cringe but it always jars slightly:

"from whence"

I've recently finished reading Pickwick Papers and in that book, Dickens makes this error quite often. Though not consistently, which leads me to wonder if it's really him or the editor.

d.

I feel the same about this.  I came across it in a line from "Mendocino" on the McGarrigle Sisters wonderful first album:-

Never had the blues from whence I came, which is an interesting line anyway!

However, it seems to be so common that "usage" might be cited for its correctness, though I don't like it.

[citoyen]

My thoughts exactly - it's a common enough "error" that it's probably crossed the line into acceptability.

d.

[Peter]

We must stand firm, d!  It's crossed the line into "use"; it will never be acceptable, except by The McGarrigles and possibly Dickens!

[trixie]

Not grammar as such but it looked wrong.

A blackboard outside a house offering "Planted planters"

Ah, Blue Peter style, 'here's one I prepared earlier!'

[Nuncio]

We must stand firm, d!  It's crossed the line into "use"; it will never be acceptable, except by The McGarrigles and possibly Dickens!

And the King James Bible ?

Psalm 121 I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.

[Peter]

Yeah, that's wrong as well!

Might have to re-think this one!

[Peter]

Certainly, it just seems some people haven't been told!

[Tom B]

a brief historical survey of 'from whence' usage

"And even a brief look at historical sources shows that from whence has been common since the thirteenth century. It has been used by Shakespeare, Defoe (in the opening of Robinson Crusoe: “He got a good estate by merchandise, and leaving off his trade, lived afterwards at York; from whence he had married my mother”), Smollett, Dickens (in A Christmas Carol: “He began to think that the source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from whence, on further tracing it, it seemed to shine”), Dryden, Gibbon, Twain (in Innocents Abroad: “He traveled all around, till at last he came to the place from whence he started”), and Trollope, and it appears 27 times in the King James Bible (including Psalm 121: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help”). "

[Peter]

Tom, I give in!  You see, the internet CAN change things.  I still don't think I'll be using it myself but it'll be interesting to see how long it takes my vestigial cringe to disappear!

[Gareth Rees]

With so many older sources using whence as we use where, is it possible that its meaning has changed over time from where to from where?

The earliest citations in the OED suggest that whence has always been used both with and without from. For example, Wycliff's Psalms of 1382 has "I rered vp myn eȝen in to the mounteynes; whennys shal come helpe to me." But the edition of 1388 has "fro whannus" for "whennys".

I imagine 14th century grammarians having the same argument we're having now ... "Nay! Thou canst nat say, fro whannus: yt lakketh gramer!"

[Nuncio]

Given that the ‘From whence’ barricade has been well-and-truly overrun, does anyone fancy raising defences to protect us from ‘Reverse back’ - ‘I reversed my car back into the road’ - and ‘Repeat again’ - ‘could you repeat that again?’ (unless that thing has already been repeated once, of course)? 

[Peter]

Given that the ‘From whence’ barricade has been well-and-truly overrun, does anyone fancy raising defences to protect us from ‘Reverse back’ - ‘I reversed my car back into the road’ - and ‘Repeat again’ - ‘could you repeat that again?’ (unless that thing has already been repeated once, of course)?

Not sure King James is going to be much help here!

[T42]

If a callow newcomer may intrude, my Chambers gives

whence
adverb, conj
1 used in questions, indirect questions and statements: from what place?; from which place as in enquired whence they had come.
2 used especially in statements: from what cause or circumstance : can't explain whence the mistake arose.
3 to the place from which : returned whence they had come.
pronoun which place : the town from whence he came.

However, the rule seems to me to be so obscure that writers throughout the ages could be forgiven for using either form, not from grammatical necessity but simply to make their sentences a little grander. Or maybe they just couldn't be bothered.

[citoyen]

As already mentioned, it's not so much a cringe for me as one of those things that jars when I read it. This is because my understanding of "whence" accords with Chambers, so I implicitly read "from whence" as "from from where".

In the Dickens case, I wouldn't have minded so much but he was inconsistent within the one book (though obviously it wasn't all written in one go) - using "from whence" in some cases and "whence" alone in others.

It doesn't matter. I can live with it. Through gritted teeth.

d.

PS welcome, T42. Please intrude at will.

[mattc]

Given that the ‘From whence’ barricade has been well-and-truly overrun, does anyone fancy raising defences to protect us from ‘Reverse back’ - ‘I reversed my car back into the road’ - and ‘Repeat again’ - ‘could you repeat that again?’ (unless that thing has already been repeated once, of course)?

The answer to your 'Reverse' example is contained within your (bracketed) answer to the 2nd.

You can deraise your defences.

[Ian H]

Given that the ‘From whence’ barricade has been well-and-truly overrun, does anyone fancy raising defences to protect us from ‘Reverse back’ - ‘I reversed my car back into the road’ - and ‘Repeat again’ - ‘could you repeat that again?’ (unless that thing has already been repeated once, of course)?

 ‘I reversed my car back into the road [from] whence it had come.'

[Peter]

Back is redundant here, surely, Ian?*

What about this one?

Slow down/slow up   Anyone any idea how the latter came about?  I use both, haphazardly, though the first is the ony one that seems to make sense.

*ETA unless it's a quotation from a policeman's notebook!

[Simonb]

the first is the ony one that seems to make sense

Except it doesn't. Phrasal verbs are mostly nonsensical.

[Peter]

the first is the ony one that seems to make sense

Except it doesn't. Phrasal verbs are mostly nonsensical.

It makes sense in the sense(!) that the speed is coming DOWN.  Whereas it's hard to see what is coming UP - unless it's a wall!

[Simonb]

It makes sense in the sense(!) that the speed is coming DOWN.  Whereas it's hard to see what is coming UP - unless it's a wall!

But, it's the slowness which is coming down, not the speed, so 'slow up' is more logical (increasing slowness). 

'Speed down' would shirley make more sense (after all, things can already 'speed up'), but that would just be silly.

[Peter]

It certainly would!

[rower40]

What about this one?

Slow down/slow up   Anyone any idea how the latter came about?  I use both, haphazardly, though the first is the ony one that seems to make sense.

Slow Up is towards London.  Slow Down is away from London.

IGMC.  It's the hi-viz one with the BR symbol on the back.

[mattc]

Back is redundant here, surely, Ian?*

What about this one?

Slow down/slow up   Anyone any idea how the latter came about?  I use both, haphazardly, though the first is the ony one that seems to make sense.

*ETA unless it's a quotation from a policeman's notebook!

We say "pull up" to mean stop, and I think there are other "... up"s meaning stop, but I can't recall them right now!

BTW are you referring to
ETA the armed Basque separatist group?