I hate that that happens

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/30396216

483 points · 56 comments · view on lemmy.world

56 Comments

socsa@piefed.social · 23 pts · 258d (12 replies)

You can pretty much always reword the sentence to avoid this. It's kind of always just bad grammar tbh.

"He wanted to make sure that that window had been closed."

"He wanted to ensure that window had been closed."

pulsewidth@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 257d

Yes, OP image is legit someone who is just not very good at grammar.

"I wish you had told me that that was a problem".

"I wish you had told me that was a problem".

The same subject, object and meaning.

Speech patterns are flexible and don't have to precisely follow written grammar. One of the many confusing intricacies of the bastard language we call English.

sik0fewl@lemmy.ca · 7 pts · 258d (3 replies)

I would argue that the grammar is better and clearer in your second first example.

Edit: oops

hypnotoad__@lemmy.ml · 7 pts · 257d (2 replies)
[ removed ]
sik0fewl@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 257d

Oops, I meant first example!

BlackVenom@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 256d

That that was their point that they had had attempted to make there wasn't clear.

OshaqHennessey@midwest.social · 2 pts · 257d (5 replies)

Why not just say, "He wanted to make sure the window was closed."?

To reword the OP, "All my good faith had no effect on the outcome."

To reword the title, "I hate when that happens."

Agreed, almost every time this happens, I think someone's just being lazy or intentional. As a matter of personal preference, I reword sentences to exclude the word "that" altogether whenever possible, so the idea of two consecutive "that"s being unavoidable severly strains my credulity.

thespcicifcocean@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 257d (1 reply)

To reword the OP, “All my good faith had no effect on the outcome.”

sometimes when telling a story you want to have a different voice, active voice versus passive voice or something. "All the good faith I'd had" hits different than "All my good faith"

there's better ways to word this though, while being able to keep the same tone

OshaqHennessey@midwest.social · 1 pts · 257d

Right, I forgot about passive vs active. Good point.

CannonFodder@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 257d

One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that of becoming your own father or mother. There is no problem in becoming your own father or mother that a broad-minded and well-adjusted family can't cope with. There is no problem with changing the course of history—the course of history does not change because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end.

The major problem is simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr. Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveler's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. It will tell you, for instance, how to describe something that was about to happen to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping forward two days in order to avoid it. The event will be descibed differently according to whether you are talking about it from the standpoint of your own natural time, from a time in the further future, or a time in the further past and is futher complicated by the possibility of conducting conversations while you are actually traveling from one time to another with the intention of becoming your own mother or father.

Most readers get as far as the Future Semiconditionally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional before giving up; and in fact in later aditions of the book all pages beyond this point have been left blank to save on printing costs.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy skips lightly over this tangle of academic abstraction, pausing only to note that the term "Future Perfect" has been abandoned since it was discovered not to be.

  • Douglas Adams
BlackVenom@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 256d

Which window? This window or that window? Any window? Yeesh. Had you thought to specify that that window needed closed we wouldn't need this discussion.

BlackVenom@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 256d

Which window? This window or that window? Any window? Yeesh. Had you thought to specify that that window needed closed we wouldn't need this discussion.

Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 257d

So someone needs to tell him that that that is unnecessary?

hperrin@lemmy.ca · 18 pts · 258d

It’s crazy that that sentence is totally understandable.

f314@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 258d (1 reply)

James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher.

::: spoiler Tap for spoiler James, while John had had “had”, had had “had had”; “had had” had had a better effect on the teacher. :::

yuri@pawb.social · 4 pts · 257d

somehow more upsetting than that buffalo nonsense

Glytch@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 258d (4 replies)

"Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo" is a grammatically correct sentence.

pulsewidth@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 257d

No it's not, because you didn't capitalize any of the 'Buffalo' to write it correctly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo

troglodytis@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 258d (2 replies)

No punctuation.

usernamefactory@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 257d (1 reply)

None is required, unless you’re nitpicking the lack of a period.

troglodytis@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 257d

It is grammatical correct, but it is not a sentence without punctuation.

Devial@discuss.online · 11 pts · 257d
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MadMadBunny@lemmy.ca · 10 pts · 258d

Okay 20+ reposts, it’s spam. You’re getting blocked.

stretch2m@infosec.pub · 8 pts · 257d (1 reply)

The Chinese have an entire story with seemingly one word that varies only by how it is pronounced:

https://youtu.be/yLcSq8bO20w

MeowerMisfit817@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 257d

Now imagine the kids like: "Hey, mom, can we have a bedtime story?" and the mom just going full "shi shi shi shi"

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 257d

All of the good faith that I had had had had no effect on the outcome that that sentence had had

Frostbeard@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 257d

Norwegian

Er det det det er? Is that what it is?

Det er det det er That is what it is

All languages united, fucked up

MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca · 7 pts · 257d (1 reply)

Thanks, I hate it.

Knoxvomica@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 257d

Thanks, I had had had had it.

despoticruin@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 258d (1 reply)

All the good faith I had had had had no outcome on that that in that sentence.

It was right there

troglodytis@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 258d

This is the way

rockerface@lemmy.cafe · 7 pts · 257d

In Ukrainian, there would be a comma in between "had had"s. I hate that English doesn't do that. You don't need punctuation to affect the way the sentence is read aloud, just make it easier to parse.

psycotica0@lemmy.ca · 7 pts · 257d (1 reply)

They're actually different parts of speech, practically different words, that are spelled the same. Most of the time, unless you're specifically enunciating, they're not even said the same! The first one is often weak, and said more like "thet" or "thit", whereas the second one is always said "that".

Like in "he said that that window...", the second one could be replaced with "this window" or "the blue window", but the first one is a grammatical structure and can't be replaced with "this". And again, if you listen to a native English speaker (at least with most accents) speaking at speed they'll say the grammatical one "thit" (or something like it), and if you were to say "that window is blue" with the same pronunciation of "that" as you do for the other "that", it would sound wrong. Because your brain knows they're not interchangeable words.

Or at least you'll sounds Kiwi 😉

nabladabla@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 257d

The sound in the weak form is a schwa

Skullgrid@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 258d

me as a turkish speaker every time I have to use "the" or "que" in a sentence (or choose between using s, c or k)

Pathetic.jpg

MeowerMisfit817@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 257d (1 reply)

Non-native english speaker brain melting here

Rekorse@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 257d

Put a comma between the middle two had's. Had had is still awful phrasing though.

leftzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 257d (2 replies)

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Squizzy@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 257d (1 reply)

Three buffalos too many

leftzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 257d

Nope, just clarifying that the Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo do also in turn buffalo Buffalo buffalo (possibly as part of a vicious circle of buffaloing).

Could be even more specific and say that they only buffalo Buffalo buffalo who're already being buffaloed by Buffalo buffalo..:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo...

... though that'd mean that the original Buffalo buffalo who instigated all the buffaloing might be getting away with it without being themselves buffaloed in turn...

mad_lentil@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 257d

lingua fucka

Ironfacebuster@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 257d

All the good faith I had had had had no meaningful effect on that that had not been changed. Had it had an effect, the affect would effect the creaking warped wood that would control my destiny; had it had, of course.

NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone · 5 pts · 257d

You never actually have to do that. Skill issue tbh.

webp@mander.xyz · 4 pts · 257d

Shut up up there

Idk

portnull@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 258d

Thanks for the sign but can you put a wider space between the boar and and and and and dog please?

robocall@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 257d (2 replies)

My problem with English is that the word "tough" should be spelt "tuff"

BlackVenom@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 256d (1 reply)

Sounds ruff.

robocall@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 256d

I thot about this thurowley

CileTheSane@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 257d (1 reply)

That that that that he had had in his sentence was grammatically correct.

oyenyaaow@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 257d

That that that that he had had had had been correct

ftfy

afox@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 257d

Reading that felt like mental gymnastics. I didn't even get bronze. As a native English speaker to anyone learning the language... "I pity the fool".

jaupsinluggies@feddit.uk · 2 pts · 257d

Double is annoys me for no obvious reason.

Also the church "thank you that" idiom. Nobody anywhere else ever says "thank you that" when thanking someone for something.

bampop@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 256d

Posts on Lemmy don't have a huge readership, but it's nice that that that that had had had had something to contribute.

toynbee@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 257d

Just last night / this morning, I was trying to find a Scrubs clip featuring JD saying "that is so weird that I didn't notice that I did that."

I was unsuccessful, but it's still an upsetting sentence.

DragonAce@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 257d

One I see people use a lot "What your problem is is that...."

Carvex@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 258d
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JcbAzPx@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 257d

Lots of languages have stuff like this. There's only so many sounds you can make.

red_bull_of_juarez@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 258d

There is dumb shit like this in every living language. Just accept it and move on. And maybe watch RealRealJapan for the idiosyncrasies of Japanese.

thethunderwolf@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 250d

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

edit: this has already been commented by someone else