Posted by Eugene Volokh:
>From Whence:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_01_18-2009_01_24.shtml#1232319001
The [1]Inaugural Oratory post below has gotten some criticism for the
author's use of "from whence." [2]One blog admonishes, "I don't mean
to misundere[s]timate you, David, but there is no such thing as 'from
whence.' 'Whence' means 'from where.'" I too had long taken a similar
view, and this is apparently a common view, judging by [3]this column.
But the Oxford English Dictionary cites examples of "from whence" from
Dryden, Dickens, and Swinburne. Even those not blessed with free OED
access can do a quick search through Project Gutenberg to find
examples from [4]Shakespeare, [5]Dickens, and who knows how many
others. To be sure, "from whence" isn't the phrase I'd choose as a
stylistic matter. But it's hard to see under what meaning of "there is
no such thing" one can say "there is no such thing as 'from whence'"
(unless "there is no such thing as" is an odd way of saying "I don't
like").
Now doubtless this can lead us to the usual debates about
descriptivism and prescriptivism. But I wonder whether we might
finesse those debates here using the sheer volume of evidence that
"from whence" has been used by great English writers. Here's my
argument, which I think should be sufficient to support my point,
though not necessary: If someone can point to evidence that a phrase
was used as standard in edited text by Shakespeare, Dickens, Dryden,
and more, then that phrase is presumptively permissible unless its
critics can point to some authority of comparable credibility that
explains why the phrase is incorrect. Surely even prescriptivists
would want to see evidence that a prescription is authoritative,
rather than deferring to any prescription that anyone happens to
pronounce.
I should also add that abstract logic of the "it's redundant" sort
can't count, because redundancy is not itself a sign of linguistic
error. For instance, "null and void" may be redundant, and may be poor
style as a result, but there's nothing incorrect about it. What's
more, standard usage sometimes requires redundancy: "I am typing"
conveys the identity of the actor twice -- in the "I" and the "am" --
but it's not therefore nonstandard, and in fact the less redundant "am
typing" is what is highly nonstandard. (Not so in other languages, in
which one can avoid redundancy of the "I am typing" variety, but that
just shows that the standard in language is a function of usage, not
of abstract logic.)
Finally, I should stress again that none of this resolves whether
"from whence" is elegant or not. [6]The American Heritage Dictionary,
for instance, reports,
The construction from whence has been criticized as redundant since
the 18th century. It is true that whence incorporates the sense of
from: a remote village, whence little news reached the wider world.
But from whence has been used steadily by reputable writers since
the 14th century, most notably in the King James Bible: "I will
lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help"
(Psalms). Such a respectable precedent makes it difficult to label
the construction as incorrect. Still, it may be observed that
whence (like thence) is most often used nowadays to impart an
archaic or highly formal tone to a passage, and that this effect is
probably better realized if the archaic syntax of the word --
without from -- is preserved as well.
And this may well be wise advice (though it's not clear, given the
dictionary's own evidence, that plain "whence" is much more archaic
than "from whence"). But that's a different matter from the question
whether a certain usage is wrong (which I take it is what was meant by
"there is no such thing").
References
1. http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_01_11-2009_01_17.shtml#1232198964
2. http://www.likelihoodofsuccess.com/2009/01/17/calling-all-skinny-kettles/
3. http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-fro2.htm
4.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=zUg&q=site%3Agutenberg.org+shakespeare+%22from+whence%22&btnG=Search
5.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=CrL&q=site%3Agutenberg.org+dickens+%22from+whence%22&btnG=Search
6. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/whence
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