how come
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English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]US English, 1848,[1] probably from older forms such as "How comes it that... ?" or "How does it come that... ?" and "How did it come to be like this?"[2]
Compare West Frisian hoe kom (“how come”), Dutch hoe komt het (“how comes it; why”), Afrikaans hoekom (“how come; why”).
Pronunciation
[edit]Adverb
[edit]- (idiomatic, informal) Why; why is it; for what reason or purpose; due to what cause?
- Synonym: why come
- How come you didn’t leave when you had the chance?
Usage notes
[edit]How come differs from why in that the word order of the question is the same as that of a statement. Compare:
- You left. (statement)
- How come you left? (statement order)
- Why did you leave? (question order)
Synonyms
[edit]Translations
[edit]why
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References
[edit]- ^ Eric Partridge (2005) “how come?”, in Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor, editors, The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, volume 1 (A–I), London, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 1044.
- ^ Hegedűs, Irén; Fodor, Alexandra (2010): English Historical Linguistics 2010: Selected Papers from the Sixteenth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics, p. 179.