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dolco
Help me with "of which" here please.
"If some one loves a flower, of which just one single blossom grows in all the millions and millions of stars, it is enough to make him happy just to look at the stars." -from The Little Prince.
I know that 'of which' can be transformed(?) just like below.
1. This is the recipe of which my mom's proud.
2. This is the recipe. My mom is proud of it.
(Here, 'be proud' is connected with 'of').
But on the said paragraph, I couldn't find any verb to which I can put 'of' next to. What word should be connected to 'of' here?
Sep 24, 2019 9:25 PM
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Answers · 6
As Ellen says, it refers to the flower. It may help to think about it this way: "Only one blossom OF this flower grows." "This is the flower OF WHICH only one blossom grows."
This is sort of a different usage of "of which," I guess. I don't know the correct grammatical description for it, but it doesn't work with a verb the same way as sentences like these:
"It's a topic IN WHICH many people are interested." (Many people are "interested IN" the topic.)
"This is the novel ABOUT WHICH I wrote my essay." (I "wrote ABOUT" this novel in my essay.)
Instead, it refers back to the original noun and describes instances of that noun. For example:
"We have two cats at home, both OF WHICH are Siamese." (Both OF our cats are Siamese cats.)
"There are many types of tea, one OF WHICH is Assam." (Assam is one OF the types of tea.)
September 24, 2019
Hi Dolco. The 'of which' in the Little Prince is referencing the flower; a type that will produce only one single blossom. So following your model to rewrite: This is the flower; the one that produces a single blossom.
Hope this helps, e,
September 24, 2019
