English ponderings

[robinbloke]

My English is not the greatest in the world and something is beginning to irk me about my recent trend in sentances.

The phrase "that that" is beginning to bug me almost on a scale of "lowly says" (Don't even start me on this one) worse still, because I'm doing it.

As I was taught it is bad practise in ones English to repeat the same word twice after one another in a sentance, that said I believe using the same adjective twice in a paragraph should be frowned upon and a thesaurus is an essential addition to any writers, casual or otherwise, armoury.

Anyway, "that that" is bugging me.

I include here by way of example an extract from a recent reply I put to a reply to a post in my LJ (phew, what a mouthful)

"...so frankly I'll babble about just about anything here - not that that is particularly unusual."

Now I've been trying to avoid using "that that" recently, principally by use of "that is" and suchlike, but in this context I fail to see how I can (simply) reword the the offending sentance and still maintain the meaning intended.

"...so frankly I'll babble about just about anything here - not that that is particularly unusual."

Any suggestions anyone? Perhaps the entire second half of the sentance is ill-advised and should have be been restructured to something like

"...so frankly I'll babble about just about anything here - but that is not particularly unusual."

Any suggestions?

Comments

First of all...

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

it's "sentence" not "sentance". As you repeatedly misspelled it, I can't let you away with a typo. ;o)

Your last suggestion is the correct one. Simply avoid constructions which would lead you to using "that that".

"...so frankly I'll babble about just about anything here - not that that is particularly unusual."

Well, the first part of the sentence isn't particularly nice, either: "[...] babble about just about anything [...]". Again, a repetition. ;o)

What you really need to look at is context. Where are you writing and who are you addressing? In personal mails to friends, on UKG or on your LJ, you would pretty much write as you talk, so no problem there using "that that". In formal letters or when you're writing documentation, you should avoid it. Same with contractions.

Ozzy
*cunning linguist*

Don't worry...

[borusa.livejournal.com]

"That that" is entirely acceptable, as is "had had".

By the way, it's sentence...

Robert

Re: First of all...

[borusa.livejournal.com]

Oz,

Got a reference for deprecating 'that that' and 'had had'?
As far as I can tell from a cursory look, it is perfectly legitimate.

Robert

Re: Don't worry...

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

It _is_ acceptable, and there's nothing wrong with it, but good style and acceptable grammar are two different things...
And I pointed out the sentence error first, so ner ;o)

english

[witchytigg.livejournal.com]

You could have put 'that it is'. And there's nothing wrong with 'that that' except that it bugs you. It always looks wrong to me, but I know it's not.

Anna

[pure-simon.livejournal.com]

not that that is particularly unusual

not that THAT'S particularly unusual?

what about this for an interesting one...if you make a sign for a particularly common british takeaway food shop, but forget to put spaces in it, you have to get a signwriter in, and he has to somehow put spaces between the "Fish" and "and" and "and" and "chips"!
8o)
5 "and"s together in a sentence, yet it makes perfect sense!
SPLEEEN!