Quotative [to be] + "that"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Exactly what I did not have the smarts to express, Peter.

JL

"Peter A. McGraw" <pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Peter A. McGraw"

Subject: Re: Quotative [to be] + "that"
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As I understood Jonathan's post, the mechanism he was referring to is
called a "cut-and-paste glitch" or a "typo." If the "all are that"
sequence had occurred more than once in the passage, it would be less
likely to be explainable as a typo, but if I recall the original quote
correctly, there was only that single occurrence.

The writer could easily have started with "are in agreement that," decided
that "agreed" was shorter and therefore preferable, deleted the "in
agreement" and forgotten to follow through by typing in "agreed." Or
gotten distracted in the middle of typing the sentence and resumed at the
wrong place. Etc. etc. Just now I forgot to type the "to" in "the
mechanism he was referring to" above, then added it when I looked over the
sentence--nothing grammatical about it.

Peter Mc.

--On Friday, March 25, 2005 12:49 PM -0800 "Arnold M. Zwicky"
wrote:

>
>> How do we know the writer didn't mean to write "all agree that"? Or
>> "all are agreed that"?
>>
>> This kind of slip happens all the time.
>
> what, *exactly*, kind of slip do you have in mind? your first
> suggestion would have intended "all agree [or: believe/say/maintain...]
> that" surfacing as "all are that"; what's the mechanism? your second
> proposal would have intended "all are agreed [or: of the
> opinion/belief] that" surfacing as "all are that", presumably by
> dropping the element heading the "that"-clause complement; again.
> what's the mechanism?



*****************************************************************
Peter A. McGraw Linfield College McMinnville, Oregon
******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************


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