firm believer that

[Joel S. Berson]

Sounds fine to me too.  "anyone can have a
breakthrough right in her own backyard" is the
statement that is believed.  "I believe that pigs
can fly" doesn't need "in the idea that".

Joel

At 9/17/2011 08:48 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>It sounds fine to me, though I see your point. I think it would be hard to
>dispute the grammaticality on any basis.
>
>(Not that it mightn't be tried.)
>
>JL
>
>On Sat, Sep 17, 2011 at 8:37 PM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com>wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
> > Subject:      firm believer that
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > A non-native speaker of English asks me whether the following is
> > grammatical:
> >
> > "I'm a firm believer that anyone can have a breakthrough right in her own
> > backyard."
> >
> > It's from an essay of Oprah in the current issue of O Magazine.
> >
> > It took me about five reads before I spotted anything possibly amiss, but
> > "a firm believer that
" definitely appears wrong now that I see it.
> >
> > I think this must come from a cross of "I'm a firm believer in the idea
> > that
" and  "I firmly believe that
"
> >
> > Is that correct?
> >
> > Benjamin Barrett
> > Seattle, WA
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
>
>--
>"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org