The post office from where i sent you the package is down the street.
Here can i use from which or where instead of from where?
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Oh, look what I found: (1) from where vs from which, (2) Is “from where” grammatically equivalent to “from which”?, (3) Can “where” be used as “from which”?, (4) from where & from which, during which & during which time.– AIQOct 21, 2019 at 8:41
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@AIQ, 1 is the closest to the question here and it has a rather questionable answer. The rest talk about slightly different usage of the phrase. So, perhaps, this isn't a duplicate.– urnonavOct 21, 2019 at 13:58
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@urnonav All 4 have sufficient information that would, at least to some extent, clear OP's problem. I think (2) and (3) are highly relevant. The point that I was trying to make is that OP does not tell us what they think should be the answer and what research they have done to solve their problem. Clearly relevant questions exist in ELL and ELU, if not duplicate.– AIQOct 21, 2019 at 19:10
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@AIQ, all those questions look like duplicates but the answers deviate into other topics. In 2, I notice the discussion is mostly centred around "where" vs "from where" and how additional prepositions influence the meaning. 3 veers into preposition placement. This question, as I read it, is strictly around "where" vs "which". The answer by Jeff below seems fitting here.– urnonavOct 21, 2019 at 20:04
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1@urnonav Everything you said is what OP should have mentioned in their question - why those questions did not help them (well, in my opinion that is). Even if not similar, I think OP would have benefited from reading through them. Would you agree that both you and I have spent more time looking into those posts than OP (assuming they have not looked into them as they have not mentioned them in their question)? That was/is my point - no evidence of effort to solve their problem. I also did not vote to close for duplicate - but for showing no research effort.– AIQOct 21, 2019 at 21:56
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2 Answers
From where I was standing, I could not see the wreck itself
shows that the construction "from where" is not ungrammatical. The construction, however, is not always idiomatic in current U.S. English.
The post office from where I sent you the package is down the street
is not idiomatic in modern U.S English.
The post office from which I sent you the package is down the street
is idiomatic in modern U.S. English.
The post office whence I sent you the package ...
is grammatical and would have been idiomatic 200 years ago but now is so old-fashioned that many in the U.S. would not understand it.
The post office where I sent you the package ...
is idiomatic but has a completely different meaning because it describes the post office to which the package was sent rather the post office from which it was sent.
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Would just underscore that, while not idiomatic, "post office from where" makes complete sense. "From where" might seem less odd in a situation where the physical location mattered. "That's the hill from where they have been shelling us all morning," or "He climbed to the rooftop, from where he had a much better view of the sunset."– urnonavOct 21, 2019 at 14:06
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1@urnanov Yes, thank you. I was perhaps not clear enough that "from where" can be more idiomatic, particularly in speech. I shall edit appropriately. Unfortunately, giving hard and fast rules about what grammatical constructions people consider idiomatic is very complex. Oct 21, 2019 at 16:29
[1] The post office from where I sent you the package is down the street.
[2] The post office from which I sent you the package is down the street.
Yes, you can. There's little to choose between the two.
"Where" and "which" both have "post office" as antecedent, and can be represented as "I sent you the package from x post office; x is down the street".
The difference is that in [1] "where" means "from x", though the "from" component is overtly expressed. Both constructions are very formal and most people would prefer the version with a stranded preposition, as in:
[3] The post office where/which I sent you the package from is down the street.
