The use of "the which"

"The which" refers to the many other things which John did. Although it is not a common usage, it is by no means archaic. "Oristar had a full set of the Oxford English Dictionary, a Merriam-Webster, an American Heritage Dictionary, and a Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary--the which represented formidable resources for understanding the vocabulary." In that case, the which refers to the previously named dictionaries. If the use of the locution has become uncommon, it's only because native speakers of English have, as a body, deteriorated in their skills.

If the use of the locution has become uncommon, it's only because native speakers of English have, as a body, deteriorated in their skills.

Can't argue there boss.

If the use of the locution has become uncommon, it's only because native speakers of English have, as a body, deteriorated in their skills.

Can you argue with that?

but you haven't addressed my question.

If the use of the locution has become uncommon, it's only because native speakers of English have, as a body, deteriorated in their skills.

http://www.pbs.org/speak/speech/correct/decline/

The Decline of Grammar

G Nunberg

...

But while it is understandable that speakers of a language with a literary tradition would tend to be pessimistic about its course, there is no more hard evidence for a general linguistic degeneration than there is reason to believe that Aaron and Rose are inferior to Ruth and Gehrig.

It is absurd even to talk about a language changing for the better or the worse
Most of my fellow linguists, in fact, would say that it is absurd even to talk about a language changing for the better or the worse. When you have the historical picture before you, and can see how Indo-European gradually slipped into Germanic, Germanic into Anglo-Saxon, and Anglo-Saxon into the English of Chaucer, then Shakespeare, and then Henry James, the process of linguistic change seems as ineluctable and impersonal as continental drift. From this Olympian point of view, not even the Norman invasion had much of an effect on the structure of the language, and all the tirades of all the grammarians since the Renaissance sound like the prattlings of landscape gardeners who hope by frantic efforts to keep Alaska from bumping into Asia.

http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/1994_01_24_thenewrepublic.html

Grammar Puss

S Pinker

Language is a human instinct. All societies have complex language, and everywhere the languages use the same kinds of grammatical machinery like nouns, verbs, auxiliaries, and agreement. All normal children develop language without conscious effort or formal lessons, and by the age of three they speak in fluent grammatical sentences, outperforming the most sophisticated computers. Brain damage or congenital conditions can make a person a linguistic savant while severely retarded, or unable to speak normally despite high intelligence. All this has led many scientists, beginning with the linguist Noam Chomsky in the late 1950's, to conclude that there are specialized circuits in the human brain, and perhaps specialized genes, that create the gift of articulate speech.

But when you read about language in the popular press, you get a very different picture. Johnny can't construct a grammatical sentence. As educational standards decline and pop culture disseminates the inarticulate ravings and unintelligible patois of surfers, rock stars, and valley girls, we are turning into a nation of functional illiterates: misusing [hopefully], confusing [lie] and [lay], treating [bummer] as a sentence, letting our participles dangle. English itself will steadily decay unless we get back to basics and start to respect our language again.

...

For here are the remarkable facts. Most of the prescriptive rules of the language mavens make no sense on any level. They are bits of folklore that originated for screwball reasons several hundred years ago and have perpetuated themselves ever since. For as long as they have existed, speakers have flouted them, spawning identical plaints about the imminent decline of the language century after century. All the best writers in English have been among the flagrant flouters. The rules conform neither to logic nor tradition, and if they were ever followed they would force writers into fuzzy, clumsy, wordy, ambiguous, incomprehensible prose, in which certain thoughts are not expressible at all. Indeed, most of the "ignorant errors" these rules are supposed to correct display an elegant logic and an acute sensitivity to the grammatical texture of the language, to which the mavens are oblivious.

Don't think for a moment that I'm suggesting that Setanta is any kind of grammarian.

Break a rule if it makes your point. But you do well to remember the rules when necessary.