that that that that that
David Foster Wallace says in The Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus:
It so happens that you can occupy a bright child for most of a very quiet morning by challenging her to use that five times in a row in a single coherent sentence...
(Bold emphasis mine.) I consider a "bright child" in DFW's world to be an adult with above-average intelligence in my world, so why don't you all give it a shot? You may want to think of your answer before looking at any comments.
I'll update with the answer in a day or two.
Update: Here's the solution.
<<< Cultural Map Wikipedia banned in China >>>
That that car ran over that cat, why, that astounded even that man.
It's a stretch, I know. I cheated by using the ", why," construction. I'm confident that starting with two thats is a solid idea. You can always fall back on a list, which is cheating:
That man, that woman, that child and that dog all got into that car in that driveway.
6, woot!
"five times in a row," said DFW -- in a row!!
so the phrase "that that that that that" must appear in the sentence with no words in between.
try again.
I contend that that's not really possible. You can always fall back on the stutter technique: Jimmy, terrified of the impending shotgun blast from his father's gun, said "But, you can't, you can't shoot me with that, that, that, that, THAT gun."
Not really a fair solution though.
I'm looking forward to seeing an answer, it doesn't seem possible.
Okay. So DFW wants to raise intellectual snobs. How good of him. That said, I think I used a sentence with five that's the other day.
"I'll take one of those, and that, that, that, that, that, and one boston creme."
Of course some of you may be saying that that that that that brother of Marco's used is incorrect. I would say you are all right.
We have a winner! (Anthony's second attempt, not his first.) I bet that Elissa figured it out for you.
She dove into the water from a high platform. I gave that high marks. I told her to do that again. That "that" that that "that" referred to in the previous sentence was the act of diving.
Anthony's works better. Only one nominal that.
Yours qualifies, but Anthony's was more in line with DFW's solution. If you're mad that he beat you to it, there's also a way to get six in a row, but it requires using a grammatical construction that at the very least I don't use very often.
It's funny how Marco and I are dating girls that are smarter than us.
It's funny how Marco and you are dating girls at all.
zing zing zing zing zing, nerds.
anthony said that, "...that that that that that brother of marco's used is incorrect"
what if anthony's name was That?
That said that "... that that that that that That used is incorrect"
anthony used a reference "that", i.e. one of his "that"'s refers to a "that" previously used in another sentence. what if you refer to a "that" in the same sentence.
that that
do you know that that "that" that that "that", that i bolded, is followed by that "that" that i italicized?
i just spent 30 minutes making that sentence make gramatical sense.
here's what the sentence means
do you know that, that "that" (refers to the second italicized "that") that that "that" (refers to the first bolded "that"), is followed by that "that" that i italicized.
to be grammatical, you'd have to use "which i bolded" after the comma. so perhaps:
do you know that that "that" that that "that" that i bolded precedes is followed by that "that" that i italicized.
By the way, nach, your solution is better than dfw's, which i'll post soon.
my sentence is not gramatical because the first "that" is loose. it's a reference with being referred to.
so i guess, i'll have to modify
do you know that that "that" that that "that" (that that nacho bolded), precedes is italicized?
it works better if you point to the italicized that when you come upon the first quoted that and if you point at the bolded that when you come upon the second quoted that (and if you get rid of what's in the parentheses first).
EIGHT in a row.
i made my comment number 14 before i saw crazy monk's posts number 12 and 13. crazymonk corrected my loose reference.
marco smells like poo!
OK, so I came up with one of those convoluted solutions that make you feel all dumb once you realize that there's a much better and silly way of getting the job done:
It's 'that', that 'that' that, that it exists at all being a sign of it, confounds specificity.
I need to get my ass out of school.
"that" sucks.
"woot" is so much better.
i can use "woot" 5 times in a sentence:
"he was all like 'damn' and i was all like 'woot woot woot woot woooooot?!'"
If you had two distint signs next to each other that said "that", you could say, He moved that that (one sign) that that that (the other sign) was next to.
You can actually run a series infinitely. Consider the following sentence: He said that that "that" that that "that" modified was redundant. But why stop with six? He said that that "that" that that "that" that that "that" that that "that" that that "that"...etc.
How about 10?
Did you know that: that "that" that that "that"( that that "that 'that'" followed) was incorrect?
As far as I can tell it makes sense, and is gramatically correct, as long as you leave in the parenthesise =)
Post new comment