Adverbial Subject?
I was just reading an article in Time about George Clooney, which quotes him as saying “I know what pisses people off about fame. It’s when famous people whine about it.” The phrase “when famous people whine about it” can be interpreted either as adverbial or substantive. That is, it can be telling us that something (namely “it”) is (exists) at a certain time (when famous people whine), or it can be telling us that a certain event (famous people whining) is something else (i.e. “what pisses people off”). In this case, the word “it” in the second sentence stands for the phrase “what pisses people off,” so we know we should interpret the clause substantively, and the second sentence means “what pisses people off is when famous people whine.”
The sentence sounds a little strange to me. Why? At first I thought it was because “when” is not being used adverbially, but I don’t think that’s it. What jars my mental grammar is how the “when” clause interacts with the “what” clause.
The word “what” is like “x” in algebra—a sort of wildcard that can stand for anything the context requires. In “I told him what she likes,” we don’t specify what “what” stands for. But in “I told him what she likes: roses” the word “what” means “roses.” We know that because we can substitute them, like this: “I told him she likes roses.” (It’s just like writing 2+2=4 instead of the more roundabout x+2=4.)
The problem with Clooney’s statement is that it uses “what” to stand for a “when” clause. This doesn’t work because he uses “what” as a subject. The “when” clause cannot substitute for it because a “when” clause cannot be used as a subject. We would never say something like “When I sleep is wonderful.” We say “Sleeping is wonderful to me,” or “It is wonderful when I sleep.” This is because whenever we see a “when” clause at the beginning of a sentence, we interpret it as an adverb. I don’t know why we do, but I’m guessing it has to do with how “when” clauses evolved from adverbials to possible substantives.
The consequence is that for Clooney’s “what” clause, substitution fails. He said “I know what pisses people off about fame. It’s when famous people whine about it.” If we remove the extraneous “it’s,” we get “I know what pisses people off about fame: when famous people whine about it.” Now try the substitution: “I know when famous people whine about it pisses people off about fame.” It just doesn’t work. To make sense, the sentence should read “I know that famous people whining about it pisses people off about fame,” or “I know that when famous people whine about it, it pisses people off about fame.” Of course, such sentences are clumsy, but at least they’re correct.
And the moral? Trust your mental grammar. I didn’t know what Clooney had done wrong when I read that quote; I just knew it sounded wrong. Your brain does a lot more thinking than you’d think!