{"id":12533,"date":"2009-07-20T18:04:25","date_gmt":"2009-07-20T18:04:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/07\/20\/whither-and-whence\/"},"modified":"2009-07-20T18:04:25","modified_gmt":"2009-07-20T18:04:25","slug":"whither-and-whence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/07\/20\/whither-and-whence\/","title":{"rendered":"Whither and Whence"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had a teacher in the fifth grade who, when one of us inappropriately wandered off, would query, "Whither goest thou?" alluding, as I did not realize at the time, to the Gospel of John (13:36):<\/font><\/p>\n

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Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

'Whither' means to where<\/em> just as 'whence' mean from where<\/em>. (Please avoid the pleonasm of 'from whence.') The distinction is obliterated by the promiscuous use of 'where' for both. That cannot be good from a logical point of view. It is therefore right and fitting and conducive unto clarity that my favorite antediluvian curmudgeon, the <\/font>Laudator Temporis Acti<\/font><\/a>, should <\/font>complain<\/font><\/a>:<\/font><\/p>\n

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The use of whither<\/em> is withering away in English, alas, just like whence<\/em>, although both words usefully distinguish notions that we now force where<\/em> alone to bear, e.g. in the New International Version of John 13.36:<\/font><\/p>\n

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Simon Peter asked him, "Lord, where are you going?" Jesus replied, "Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later."<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had a teacher in the fifth grade who, when one of us inappropriately wandered off, would query, "Whither goest thou?" alluding, as I did not realize at the time, to the Gospel of John (13:36): Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow … Continue reading “Whither and Whence”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language-matters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}