Update: thank you everyone! user @Today has provided a great link of a discussion that suggests the correct answer is where being an abbreviation of, whereas as a replacement of since, hypothesized in these comments.
As I love archaic definitions, I’m more convinced to now that this is the answer!
Especially since the question originates from one weirdo using “where” instead of since.
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/338694/is-it-ever-appropriate-to-use-where-instead-of-because-or-since
Like “Where we knew he was heading to Chicago tomorrow, we got on the first plane heading east to intercept.”
“Where we knew where the safe was, we began to cut through the wall in the corner behind her desk.”
Thanks
I feel like I’ve never heard this before, ever.
Me too. And everyone else is on the same page .
Okay, maybe this is a neighborhood thing. Or immigrant parents, something more specific and less common than general region.
Nosince
Haha, love this.
U.S. born and raised. I’ve traveled a moderate amount and have literally never heard this (most of time spent in Mid-Atlantic, Gulf Coast, and Southwest)
Okay, thanks
Are these examples you made up or were they pulled from media?
It almost sounds like a shortening of “The one where…” as seen in the title of every Friend’s episode.
Is it possible that you are misusing the term in your examples? Because I’ve never heard of where being interchangeable with since.
Shortening of ‘whereas’ maybe?
I don’t think I have either. From media, although I can’t share the media.
It’s definitely not “the one where…”, but it isn’t impossible I’m misusing the term, although I find that unlikely, I can’t see another word that fits, and the sentences are fairly straightforward.
Where is always used in the beginning to indicate the reasoning for the following action or logical stop.
“Where I was on the bed, I leaned around the corner to look into the hallway”.
“‘Where most of the animals are scared, I can’t see the point of scaring them further.’”
“Where they can pick locks, they might already know what’s in the safe!”
I could hear “Where’s” being used for “Whereas” deeper in the mountains, come to think of it.
“Where’s I’s on the bed, I leaned 'round the corner”
“Where’s most of the animals is scared”
“Where’s they’s can pick locks”
Fascinating, thank you
I have never heard that. Lived in Missouri and Virginia.
K, thanks
Sounds New England to my Appalachian ears.
I have never heard this having married a Nutmegger (CT) from them or their family. I’ve actually never heard this from anyone ever in my life! The way I’m reading it, I can for some reason only hear it in a heavy Southern drawl, like MS or AL? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I don’t think I’ve ever heard it, but if I did, I would think a Mainer or rural area of New York or something.
I can relate, OP. When I was a kid, I often heard people say “on an accident” instead of “on accident” or “by accident”. Didn’t realize how odd this was until my teen years.
Haha, thanks.
Every time I hear or read “…deer in the headlights”(apparently very common) instead of “…deer in headlights”, my brain short circuits.
Guilty as charged. There’s only one set of headlights in the observable universe, I reckon.
Damn, I should have said, “I wreck on”.
Haha, no worries, I must have heard and read " deer in the headlights" 10,000 times in my life before I finally noticed it one day and started eye twitching, haha.
Damn, and it took me long enough to accept “on accident” is probably fine now
I’ve never heard them be interchangeable. Grew up in the NE US, PA, NY, FL, and MA.
I’ve spent most of the last twenty years in the Midwest, and can’t think of a single example.
The outlier would be very, very careful instructions - likely written - organized in an if/then fashion which is a totally different use case:
- Where the coffee machine is empty and the old filter abd grounds have been removed…
- Where the coffee machine is empty but the used filter and grounds are still present… (add step to deal with that case)
- Where the moron before you forgot to turn off the burner after emptying the carafe…
“Since” wouldn’t fit, at least without changing the instructions after the ellipsis.
And of course the classic example: “since you are up, get me a beer…” also doesn’t really work. (Apologies to some long irrelevant redneck comedian for ripping that off to make a point).
I’m trying in my head to make it fit in both casual and formal conversation, and it just won’t as far as I can tell.
Would love a counterfactual where both work!
That’s the interesting thing, its usage is very specific and not like the instruction examples you provided
It’s used consistently throughout a book in exactly your beer scenario, or let me grab the other almost exact examples from another comment:
“Where I was on the bed, I leaned around the corner to look into the hallway”.
“‘Where most of the animals are scared, I can’t see the point of scaring them further.’”
“Where they can pick locks, they might already know what’s in the safe!”
So yeah, wouldn’t work in standard English, but they consistently use where instead of sense in these kinds of sentences.
It sounds like maybe something that comes out of legal jargon to my ears (disclaimer, I am no lawyer or anything of the sort, most of my understanding of lawyer talk comes from tv shows and movies which are not usually the most accurate)
I could kind of imagine some sort of statement beginning with something like “Where the defendant, having been…” followed by some descriptions of circumstances and legal precedents and such.
I like this, good call, I feel like one of those Southern gentlemen lawyers would say something like that.
Maybe> I’ve seen that in a TV show or something.
“Whereas” sort of makes sense there instead of just “Where,” but even that sounds like someone trying to be formal and missing the mark.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/652015/where-vs-whereas-how-use-each
Thanks, whereas is a valid hypothesis, good find.
These instances of “where” are used in informal conversations between characters as well, like in the example below, so while that’s probably not exactly it, it’s a good consideration.
“‘Where most of the animals are scared, I can’t see the point of scaring them further.’”
I’ve never heard this in California… but “since” can imply any kind of causal or logical relationship, while both your examples seem specifically related to physical proximity. So is it possible the usage you’re noticing is constrained to that kind of context?
Thanks, it isn’t only locative.
It isn’t just constrained to location, it’s more about “in the situation of…”
These examples work also:
“‘Where most of the animals are scared, I can’t see the point of scaring them further.’”
“Where they can pick locks, they might already know what’s in the safe!”
Do you mean like, “in the situation of?” For example, “where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
Otherwise I’d say that since they’re both prepositions–dealing with the relationship between two or more things in space or time–it sounds like somebody was just a little confused about how to explain it.
Where people use them interchangeably you’re likely to find non-native English speakers.
Yes, it’s used consistently to express “in the situation of…” the same way “since” is normally used.
This is a native English speaker from Colorado, but after looking it up, I don’t see any indication that some Coloradans regularly use “where” instead of “since”.
I never heard that when I was in Denver.
Everything else is written in standard English.
