from where? means “from where, origin, or cause.” Does that mean saying “from where” is wrong?
Samuel Johnson, shown here grimacing at his contemporaries’ use of the phrase ‘from’, called it “an obscenity.”
Samuel Johnson certainly seems to think so. In my 1755 English dictionaryhe called from where? “an obscene way of speaking.”
That’s not a compliment, though Vicious, as we now spell it, was a little lighter then; it mainly describes very bad habits. The from where? habit is one that Johnson himself sometimes gets into, if you believe his biographer:
Nothing is served there; no tea, no coffee, no lemonade, or whatever; and depend on it, sir, a man does not like to go to a place from which he comes out just as he comes in — Samuel Johnson, quoted in Boswell’s Samuel Johnson’s Life1791
Poor Sam. We hope he won’t be too hard on himself about that. The fact that he was in good company. Many highly rated writers before and after Johnson used from where?:
Let them be whipped through every town until they reach Berwick, where they come from. — Shakespeare, Henry VI, part 21592
… Sitbourne, from which we have a famous pair of horses… — Jane Austen, letter, 24 October 1798
… to this place, from where it will be forwarded to me… – Lord Byron, letter, 31 August 1809
Some of these writers sometimes prefer empty adverbs:
… off the coast of Cyprus . . . from where will they set sail in a day or two… — Jane Austen, letter, November 1, 1800
… on the way to Constantinople, from which I wrote to you… —Lord Byron, letter, July 30, 1810
As in previous centuries, from where? in the 21st is sometimes found with from and sometimes not:
During an annual trip to the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, they heard a band they liked. Where did this up-and-comer come from? San Francisco. —Chloe Roth, San Francisco ChroniclesAugust 4, 2011
Your choice of words can reveal a lot about your background. But a new study shows that the speed and rhythm of your speech can also be used to tell where you’re coming from… — Marissa Fessenden, Smithsonian.comFebruary 5, 2016
Half an hour later, she was on stage, strutting in a glitter catsuit, back in orbit from where she came from. — David Amden, W Magazine, February 3, 2016
The beautifully complex beef stew gets its name from the region in east-central France where it originated. — Ratha Tep, The Wall Street Journal January 19, 2013
The Rams’ departure to Los Angeles, where they came from two decades ago, is something that makes the city people rejoice, not lament. — Joe Nocera, New York TimesJanuary 15, 2016
In a book in Newfoundland, she read that a boy’s mother told him that people’s freckles were washed away in prolonged rains; freckled puddles that wise children filled them with and ruined their dinner. — Annie Dillard, Harper’sNovember 2003
The fact is that both the phrase and the ceiling adverb have been used for centuries and there is nothing wrong with either. Although condemnations are sometimes made, from where? is well established and you can feel free to use it or not. We won’t think you’re evil.
Categories: Usage Notes
Source: vothisaucamau.edu.vn
