Ding dong, “in which” is dead

by David Benjamin

“… It is not surprising that military leaders would be reluctant to give up on a mission their organization had invested so much in…”
— Jessica D. Blankshain & Max Z. Margulies, NY Times, 16 Sept.

MADISON, Wis. — This week, sportswriter Chris Conte, an online columnist for Hardwood Houdini, wrote the following: “In those situations, Nesmith will be forced to rely on his shot creation which we touched on early, and moving the ball, which Udoka has taken a particular interest in.”

Besides Conte’s use of “which” instead of “that,” what’s wrong with this sentence?

Anyone who suffered through grade-school English grammar recognizes that Conte, as well as university professors Blankshain and Margulies in the above quote, broke a fundamental rule that was hammered into the consciousness of schoolchildren from McGuffey’s Readers to Strunk & White. To wit: ending a sentence with a preposition is an offense up with which your English teacher will not put. Yes, there are exceptions. When Casey Stengel, for instance, said, “You could look it up,” he was employing an admirably correct English idiom. And when someone says, “I’ll take over,” he or she is implying a direct object that need not be uttered because both speaker and listener understand.

Moreover, in live conversation, the tendency to say, for example, “Synesthesia is a subject I’m really interested in,” this construction, although it jars on my ear, is forgivable because it flows unconsciously from the swift flow of casual dialog. My objection is that, in a formal context, especially in the speech and writing of professional journalists and college professors — and their copy editors — the use of correct sentence structure, by using “with which,” “to which” and “in which,” seems to have gone the way of the woolly mammoth. The good “which” has been largely supplanted by an infestation of dangling prepositions.

I ask. In the Blankshain-Margulies sentence above, would it have been so hard for the authors — or their nameless, more culpable New York Times copy editor — to write “in which their organization had invested so much”? I understand that, in the space-conscious realm of journalism, “which” is an extra word.

But it’s the right word.

This tendency to resort — lazily — to a prepositional caboose is even more prevalent in television news. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that when Chuck, Tucker, Rachel or Anderson is doing a live interview, his or her speech, as well as that of the interviewee, will be speckled with colloquial bloopers. But every newscaster in the current media — whether reading the latest bulletin or launching a monolog — is equipped with script, TelePrompter and a team of crack editors. Still, in any given broadcast, every one of these talking heads will chronically dangle, at the last extremity of a dozen sentences, an “in” or an “out,” or a veritable litany of “tos,” “intos,” “overs” and “unders.”

They will also indulge the unfortunate — slovenly — habit of using “where” when they mean “in which” or “to which.” Even worse, they will say “where” then they should say, “when.”

How often, if you listen, do you hear a college-educated commentator say, “We’re living in an era where…” Or, “This is a moment where…”?

“Where?” Terms like “era,” “moment,” “hour,” “day,” “week,” “month,” “year,” “decade,” etc., are references to time, not location. Example: “New York is where he lived. Last year was when he lived there.” Come on, Tucker, Lawrence, Robin, Wolf. Is this hard?

Lately, I’ve noticed, among the TV commentariat (I know, I watch too much cable news), historical references to items, ideas or institutions that are “foundational.” This clunky word’s vogue, perhaps, derives from the fact that it rhymes with “sensational.” But, as I listen, what the talking heads mean — and would say, if they thought about it — is “fundamental.” In some cases, what they mean is a shorter, crisper, more specific adjective: “founding.” As in “founding principles,” the “founding beliefs of our Founding Fathers,” etc.

The rule here, again dating back to our school days, is that you don’t need to make up a new, ambiguous word when you already have one that means the same, but more clearly. I would also cite — because I like to — two of Mark Twain’s sacred exposition rules: “…the author shall: 12. Say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it. 13. Use the right word, not its second cousin…”

The emergence of the superfluous “foundational” from the lips of our linguistic tastemakers illustrates another unfortunate trend in our public discourse, the problem of syllable creep. “Foundational,” rather than “founding,” tickles the uvula of the orator, the blowhard and the amateur pontificator because it’s so nice and long. To use another word of which I’m tired, it “resonates.”

Speaking of syllable creep, I’ve noticed in my news consumption the enlargement of “grudging” to “begrudging”and the perversion of “aberrant” into “aberrational” (which rhymes coincidentally with “foundational”). The adjective “reactive” has pretty much succumbed — despite the distortion of meaning — to “reactionary,” ’cause it’s longer and most speakers don’t know the difference. “Preventive” has grown into “preventative,” possibly stealing its unnecessary “at” from a dormant “at which.” Likewise, “to orient” is now “to orientate,” largely through a misbegotten back-formation from the noun “orientation.” A football coach, speaking off the cuff recently, performed the remarkable feat of tripling the syllables in one of our commonest words by turning it into “comfortability.”

I wonder. When will sinners seeking forgiveness be absoluted rather than absolved?

I note lately, with some consternation, that people who for the past six or seven thousand years were called “slaves” — a simple, non-judgmental and deeply evocative syllable — have become, for the sake of gratuitous euphemism, “enslaved people.” I wonder if the descendants of the “enslaved laborers” who died at Dachau and Mauthausen feel consoled by the posthumous attachment of a two-letter prefix. Perhaps contrarily, I can’t help noting that using the term “colored people,” a relict of my youth, is now a slur, while “people of color” is a term of respect, pride and frequent invocation.

What a difference a syllable makes.

I have two pages of notes on these and similar grammatical travesties in the current vernacular, but I’m reluctant to come off as a curmudgeon. So, I’ll stop with one last peeve.

I watch football every weekend. In each game, there inevitably occurs a call by the officials to which one of the coaches objects. This requires the team of refs to study a video replay and determine whether the call made on the field might be mistaken. When the officials agree on a verdict, the head ref steps out onto the gridiron, turns on his microphone and begins his announcement:

“Upon further review…”

I’m ready for this. I shout at the television, “Just a goddamn minute! Did you review it twice? No, moron! You reviewed it once. Once! This is not ‘upon further review’. It’s ‘upon review.’ Once is a ‘view’. Twice is ‘review’. Three times — three! — is ‘further review’!”

At which my own true love, Hotlips — wearied by the sad spectacle of an impotent grammarian screaming at an inanimate screen — leaves the room.