Quotative [to be] + "that"

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Mar 22, 2005, at 12:34 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> Actually, I'm with you all the way. It just struck me as really,
> really, really weird that replacing "that" with "like" makes that
> sentence feel so much better. As one of my old profs used to say,
> "How can this *be*?!"

see below.

>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Tom Kysilko <pds at VISI.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: Quotative [to be] + "that"
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ---------
>>
>> With quotative "like", the sentence would feel better to me as "...
>> they're all
>> like ..." rather than "... they all are like ..."
>>
>> Maybe it's just me,

you're letting floated-quantifier "all" and quotative "all" get mooshed
together.  the "all" is irrevelant, i think: convert to "all of them
are that..." and think about that.

>> Quoting Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM>:
>>
>>>  Try replacing that "that" with "like" and see how the sentence
>>> feels.
>>>  Just a suggestion.

but this converts a reportive (of, i think, a relatively uncommon but
not unattested type) to a genuine quotative (with "like", and these are
*really* common).  see my previous posting.

arnold