Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
It's a terribly old fashioned word - I don't think anybody actually uses it any more  .
"Whence" means "from where", and its partner, "whither", means "to where", but I suspect that you'd get rather funny looks if you were to use them in conversation! German, though, has exactly analogous words, "woher" (from where) and "wohin" (to where), which are still very much used. |
Indeed. And lamentably, the same redundant construction "von woher" (lit. "from from where") is frequently heard, especially in colloquial speech. Interestingly, the analogously redundant "to whither" and "nach wohin" seem to be exceedingly rare in both languages.
(can you tell that I've also been following the Adverb thread? :-D )