"Thaaat's what I'm talking about!"

[Laurence Horn]

On Oct 27, 2011, at 8:47 PM, Ben Zimmer wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 6:32 PM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hardly the same.
>>
>> The "Jaws" ex. means, "(Can't you see) that's what I'm talking about?!"
>>
>> B.B. King says "Thaat's what I'm talking about!" in response to the
>> guitar-playing and blood-sugar testing of  of Crystal Bowersox. He
>> thinks both are great.
>
> In the idiomatic version that we're, uh, talking about, sentence
> stress is (I think) typically on the first word: "THAT'S what I'm
> talking about." Rather like "THAT'S the ticket" or "THAT'S the stuff."
>
> --bgz
Or in reduced form as in "ATTaboy!", I assume < "THAT'S the boy"

LH

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