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Tell me about those facts from whatever source you may know them.

Is this the same as

No matter what source you may know those facts from, tell me about them?

The common mistake is to interpret it as "Tell me about those facts from any source you may know them" coz if so, from must be at the end of it.

So from this this "whatever" is not "any ...that"

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    Both sentences are pretty awkward, and I'd be confused if someone said it in normal conversation. Are you perhaps getting at something like this? Person A: "Well, I don't know how accurate it is... Bob's sister's cousin heard it from an old college roommate who's known for spending a lot of time on Wikipedia..." Person B: "I don't care how reliable the source is, just tell me!"
    – WendiKidd
    Apr 19, 2014 at 15:46
  • I agree with @WendiKidd - both sentences are awkward (though the second one is a bit better). If I needed to rewrite and keep the meaning, I think I'd go for something like "Tell me the facts, regardless of where you got them from"... But I'm not sure I understand your question, to be honest.
    – Alicja Z
    Apr 19, 2014 at 17:35
  • I found a similar text in a translation of The Odyssey by Homer: "Tell me, too, about all these things, O daughter of Jove, from whatsoever source you may know them." -- The sentence seems to make more sense in the translation.
    – Damkerng T.
    Apr 19, 2014 at 22:12
  • Your questions need to have context. Also, if you edit the sentence in question, always put it alongside the original with an explanation. It's not fair to the users of this site to post questions that are deliberately missing the context needed to provide useful responses.
    – user230
    Apr 19, 2014 at 22:31
  • I read it like this: Please tell me about all these things; whatever source you may know them (all these things) from.
    – Damkerng T.
    Apr 20, 2014 at 6:55

2 Answers 2

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Ways to express this:

Tell/Give me the facts, regardless of the source.

No matter the source, tell/give me the facts.

No matter what the source is, tell/give me the facts.

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  • Using "/" that way in sentences is not standard English.
    – Christian
    Apr 19, 2014 at 21:34
  • In this situation, tell or give are interchangeable.
    – DTRT
    Apr 19, 2014 at 22:08
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    @Christian When discussing language, we use lots of symbols you wouldn't ordinarily see in written English. For example, we often mark ungrammatical sentences with asterisks. This is fine and nothing to be concerned about.
    – user230
    Apr 19, 2014 at 22:33
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A very simple change to make the first sentence more natural is to use "any" instead of "whatever". I agree with @user3169 that "them" at the end is not useful in this sentence.

Tell me about those facts from any source you may know.

You also can try a different sentence structure like some of the suggestions from @boatseller, or for example, "I want to know, no matter what source."

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