Was that he was guilty obvious?

Ann Burlingham ann at BURLINGHAMBOOKS.COM
Wed Jan 12 19:41:02 UTC 2011


On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 2:28 PM, Robin Hamilton
<robin.hamilton3 at virginmedia.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton3 at VIRGINMEDIA.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Was that he was guilty obvious?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Grammatical in my formal register (Received Standard Scots), but with a
> strong pause before "obvious".
>
> Probably not occurring often in an informal colloquial context, and if
> written, I'd couch it thus:  "Was that he was guilty, obvious?"

I was thinking that as a spoken statement I'd have no problem with it,
especially adding a comma as Robin would.

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