http://wordie.org/words/that Comments for the word 'That' http://wordie.org http://wordie.org/words/that#comments What bothers me about 'that?' I don't like it when sentient beings are referred to as 'that,' rather than as 'who.' Take that, CMS. <br /> <br />See also, who. <br /> Tue, 19 Aug 2008 05:36:12 +0000 http://wordie.org/words/that#comments http://wordie.org/words/that#comments If, dubiously, 'that that' is grammatical as the beginning of a fused-head noun phrase (i.e. if we can say 'That that I said is true' to mean "That which I said is true" = "What I said is true") then we can construct a sentence with four consecutive uses of 'that': <br /> <br />It is evident that that that that nasty man said is true. <br /> <br />In truth, however, the sequence is illusory anyway, since the first and third uses are the <a href="/words/subordinator">subordinator</a> 'that', while the second and fourth are the <a href="/words/determinative">determinative</a>, which is for all practical purposes a different word. <br /> Tue, 05 Aug 2008 12:12:41 +0000 http://wordie.org/words/that#comments