Mar 8, 2012
Grammatical Peeve
I'm not a perfectionist when it comes using to proper grammar, but whenever I hear the words "from whence" uttered next to each other, in that order, I squirm.
Ever since I have taken Latin, I have become a snob over the proper usage of "whence."
When using the word "whence," never say, "from whence." Drop the "from," because "whence" already means "from where." When you say "from whence," you're being redundant. I squealed when I was reading some primary documents from antebellum South in my history class a couple years ago.
Now I sound like a snob, but I'm thinking about it at the moment, and damn, it just gets my goat.