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

[Ben Zimmer]

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

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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