one-replacement in various dialects

[tsukikage]

Consider the following short conversation:
"Can you hand me the box?"
"Which box?"
"The one of chocolates."

[Poll #482088]

Comments

[mrinx.livejournal.com]

Hey, can you change mine to "It's completely ungramatical"? I thought the bottom one said "It's not only ungrammatical, but it's a bit awkward".... I dunno why... (other than me being sleep deprived)... so yeah...

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

If only I knew how...

[disheveledhair.livejournal.com]

You can change your own vote, click on the poll then fill out poll and it'll let you change =0) Only you can change it

[hitokiri-neko.livejournal.com]

In a situation like this, I'd be more likely to say "Can you hand me the box of chocolates?", but that wasn't an option.

[equalinvain.livejournal.com]

That's not proper grammar. The proper way would be "The one with chocolates.", I think.

[stiffie.livejournal.com]

However!!!! No one in the upper peninsula would believe that to be gramatically correct aside from myself. They would say somthing along the lines of:

"Hey, throw me the box!"
"What?!"
"The chocolates, retard!"

[stiffie.livejournal.com]

And the reason for my answer of it being grammatical is due to my study of various chocolates languages. For example, in Spanish they would say "[la caja] de chocolates" (of chocolates) and not "con chocolates" (with chocolates). I've learned a ton about my own language just from studying foreign languages! Subjunctive forms, especially! It's amazing how people screw up when they speak, thinking they're perfectly correct.

[stiffie.livejournal.com]

I keep replying to myself yay! :)

"the one of chocolates"

Yes, it sounds awkward...but I believe actually both make sense. "The one" refers to "box", and you are implying it's a box of chocolates. It's also a box with chocolates. :)

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

LOL!

[jamestdr.livejournal.com]

If it's used and generally understood, it's grammatical in any sense of grammar worth knowing.

Grammar comes from usage, not the reverse. It just takes the grammar books a while to catch up with real grammar.

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

Actually, according to my syntax textbook, this is a dialectal thing. I know in my dialect, it's okay, but apparently in most dialects it's not.

[darkjing.livejournal.com]

I agree, it's totally grammatical. Now all this talk of chocolate is making me hungry... (stuffs face full of cookies) ;)

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

What kind of cookies?

[darkjing.livejournal.com]

Chocolate Chip of course!

[disheveledhair.livejournal.com]

I dunno, I mean, we say, Can you hand me that box? Which one? The box of chocolates. I think taking out the "box" makes it kinda o.O cause that kind of implies that it's Chocolate's box, as if chocolate were a person. At least, to me it does. But what do I know? meh...