25.10.05

The world is ending

I just heard a British talking head on the local ESPN channel say, "Who would want to be in the role of a goalkeeper, whereby you're in a position where you have to ... "

Whereby?!
Whereby?!($#(*$&@($@#($#@$#^@
It's where, WHERE, WHERE!!!

You know the war is lost when even the ostensible "native speakers" of English get it wrong.

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3 Comments:

At 10/26/2005 4:46 am , Anonymous Anonymous said...

My, oh my. A Brit, no less. Must have lived here too long or something. Oh, the number of times I circled, underlined or cancelled 'whereby' on scripts...

 
At 10/30/2005 12:25 am , Anonymous Anonymous said...

The sentence is clumsy, but the use of "whereby" here is, arguably, not wrong. Replace "whereby" with "by which" and the sentence makes standard grammatical sense, more or less (i.e. BY being in the role of a goalkeeper, you're in a position where...) But yes, a very inelegant construction which would not pass muster as written English.

Well do I know the old woeful cry:
O student O student, wherefore dost thou use 'whereby'?

 
At 10/30/2005 1:54 am , Blogger Tym said...

I really don't know where the "whereby" disease comes from. Is someone infecting primary or secondary schools with incorrect usage?

another ex-gpteacher > Not sure I agree with you on that. Shouldn't it be "in which" rather than "by which"? The role of a goalkeeper isn't a process "by which" anything can happen, yah?

Love your couplet!

 

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