Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 November 20

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November 20

What time and when

This seems to be a Britishism and I have only seen it in print in relation to scheduling of TV programmes - e.g. "What time and when is I'm a Celebrity on tonight?" - to quote a typical usage of this type. What's the difference between "what time" and "when" in this context? I thought perhaps the "when" refers to dates while "what time" refers to hours and minutes, but that wouldn't make sense in this context as the same headline already specifies "tonight" for the date. If it is an idiomatic expression, is it only found in British English, or does your variety of English have it too? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 16:32, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

See idiom. To quote, "In linguistics, idioms are usually presumed to be figures of speech contradicting the principle of compositionality." That means that an idiom is a phrase which resists meaningful analysis by parts. "What time and when" is idiomatic in the sense that you cannot provide the sort of meaning you are asking for. It's an idiom which just means (in standard English) "when". The separate bits are not meant to be understood individually. --Jayron32 20:03, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

The Society of Redundancy Society. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:04, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Never seen it or heard of it being used in New Zealand English. Akld guy (talk) 00:27, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Is it common anywhere? I've not heard it in my region of Britain. Google books finds only two examples for me: one is British and one is American. Dbfirs 00:37, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Here's a couple of examples from the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph Dja1979 (talk) 01:59, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

In both of those examples, the "when" part seems to refer to the date. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:35, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

I can't find the expression in either of those links. Is the internet serving me something different? They are not actually from the newspaper, are they? Dbfirs 23:34, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

I am a British English speaker and I have never heard of any idiom "what time and when". To me it could make sense if "when" means the date and "what time" means the time of day, but "What time and when is I'm a Celebrity on tonight?" sounds wrong. 86.183.128.129 (talk) 01:14, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

I've never heard this horrible phrase spoken either (in London) but a quick Google search throws up pages of UK-based examples. I despair. Alansplodge (talk) 01:37, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

So do I! There are also examples of this sort of colloquial usage from America and New Zealand. I have a feeling that this type of reduplication has its origin in Irish English, but I can't find any evidence, so perhaps I'm wrong. Dbfirs 09:15, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Please show links to usage in New Zealand. And please be aware that some publications in NZ, including the respected New Zealand Herald newspaper, openly admit to using US spelling and convention instead of New Zealand English, for which they will never be forgiven by me as long as I live. Akld guy (talk) 11:00, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

The French "aujourd'hui" is beyond despair, as we already forgot its etymologic sense is literally "on the day of today", and as more and more often nowadays is it heard an even more redundant "au jour d'aujourd'hui", which means literally "on today's day of today"... Akseli9 (talk) 04:32, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Or even more literally, "on the day of on the day of today". —Tamfang (talk) 06:08, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Plus "hui" comes from Latin "hodie", which is itself an abbreviation of "hoc die", "on this day", so you could say it means "on the day of on the day of on this day". Adam Bishop (talk) 12:15, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

But probably sounds too much like "oui", and so got qualified. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 14:53, 22 November 2015 (UTC).

Or rather, too much like huit ('eight'). —Tamfang (talk) 08:09, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

There seems to be an automatic headline/question generator on Telegraph.co.uk that starts off with "what time and when" - some of the sentences end with "on TV this weekend" where there's some sense, others end in "on TV tonight". "What time and what channel" seems better though and I expect someone goofed. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 14:53, 22 November 2015 (UTC).

Interesting, I took the example in the original question from Telegraph.co.uk, but have also seen it elsewhere - typing it into Google throws up stuff like https://www.reddit.com/r/darksouls3/comments/3oo66u/what_time_and_when_is_the_stress_test/?, http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2014-12-02/doctor-who-2014-christmas-special-air-time-revealed, http://community.babycenter.com/post/a59302825/boyfriendchilds_father_has_been_hiding_our_baby_from_his_last_baby_mama, http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/FAQ_Answers-g34515-d85429-t1114976-Before_arriving_this_hotel_I_stayed_on_Disney.html. When I start typing "What time and when..." into Google, it also suggests "what time and when is a blue moon". Interestingly, the Tripadvisor post is from someone who lives in Canada.

It sounds like a rare colloquialism and probably not intended to mean anything more than "what time". Perhaps whoever wrote the Telegraph script belongs to whatever regional or cultural group where this usage is common. Now if only someone knows what that group is... --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:43, 23 November 2015 (UTC)