informalwhere

Informalwhere is a term used in linguistic discourse to describe locational expressions that appear in casual, nonstandard, or conversational speech. It is not an established category in mainstream syntax or phonology, but it has been used in online discussions and some corpus notes as a shorthand for a recurring pattern in how people refer to places in everyday language.

Etymology and status: The word is a neologism formed by combining informal with where. Its exact first use is unclear, and it is not widely adopted in formal grammars. In practice, writers use informalwhere to flag a cluster of phenomena associated with informal speech, rather than to propose a formal theory with agreed-upon rules.

Usage and interpretation: Informalwhere is often invoked to discuss locative questions or statements that exhibit nonstandard features, such as sentence-final prepositions, filler words, or reduced register. Examples commonly cited include sentences like “Where’s the store at?” or “Where you going at?” These forms contrast with formal variants such as “Where is the store?” or “Where are you going?” The label is typically used in descriptive accounts of regional or sociolectal variation, child language acquisition discussions, or language-learning materials that illustrate casual speech patterns.

Examples: Formal: Where is the store? Informalwhere example: Where’s the store at? Another: Where are you going at? A more abstract use would categorize multiple casual locatives under the same informalwhere pattern without prescribing a single grammatical rule.

See also: locative expressions, final prepositions, colloquial speech, sociolect.