Leaving Out “That”

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Doug from the Centro.

Hi, Douglas, how you doing?

I’m doing great, how you doing?

Super duper.

I was hoping, actually I got two things. One is I was hoping you could solve a conflict that we have with the word that. And then as kind of a little side note, I have a little brain teaser with the word that I think you’ll enjoy as well.

Ha, yes, please.

With the word that?

That, T-H-A-T?

With that, T-H-A-T, correct.

All right. What is it about that?

Okay, well, I’m a police officer, and so I end up writing a lot of reports based on interviews that I do with people. And in the reports, I have to basically describe what the people told me. And so I’ll say something like, you know, the subject stated that he met the co-defendant at a party two weeks ago. He stated that the co-defendant offered him an opportunity to be involved in an illegal venture. He stated that he agreed to be involved after he was offered a substantial sum of money, things like that. And when I submit that report to the prosecutors in order to initiate the case, the prosecutor will go and get rid of every word that in my entire report.

Really?

My take on it is, although it doesn’t sound good to have the word that over and over and over again, I feel like it’s necessary because it indicates that I’m actually summarizing what the person told me as opposed to a direct quote. If I say the subject said he met the co-defendant of the party, to me, without the word that to kind of distinguish, then he met the co-defendant of the party would have to be a direct quote. But I’m not sure if I’m correct.

Yeah, I like what you’re doing. I think that makes sense to me.

Oh, you do?

Yeah.

Yeah, I do.

What do you think, Grant?

Well, let me hear your argument.

Okay. I’m not completely committed to the other point of view, but let me hear what you think. I feel about that thing the way that I do about the serial comma. You know that last comma and the flag is red, comma, white, comma, and blue?

Correct.

Do you do that too?

I don’t put the comma in there. I’ll leave it out.

Oh, I thought I had a kindred spirit here. But anyway, I put it in there just for clarity, and I think that that does help clarify things. I’m surprised they’re taking them out.

Well, they’re taking it out because it sounds better without it. But, see, I’m not writing a report that’s supposed to be for pleasure reading. I’m writing a report that’s evidence.

Yeah, I think that especially, maybe not so much with the word said, but a lot of other words like acknowledge or believe or doubt or claim, and maybe stated as well, it just helps clarify things a little bit. Like, for example, what about the sentence, say, the court decided the question did not need to be addressed?

Okay.

For a second there, you think the court decided the question of such and such. You know, it’s just one of those things where you have to put the clutch in and put the car in reverse and back up a little bit in the sentence. That’s my feeling about it, Grant.

I can see that being a great explanation of case. But, you know, you kind of do it on a case-by-case basis. If there’s no room for confusion there, you might as well leave the that out. It is often a redundant word. But I think what you’ve identified here, and accurately, is the places where there’s a clause where the suspect said that, and it’s a whole idea that belongs together. And in that case, the that, I think, is called for.

And if we had—and, Doug, it sounds like you’re not using quote marks. If you write, the suspect said that he was not there at the time, there are no quote marks here. It’s a paraphrase, right?

Yeah, if there were quote marks involved, I could definitely see leaving the that out as an almost universal case, because you would say the suspect said comma, quote, and then you would put the thing. I guess as long as you two, you and the prosecutor are discussing this and making sure that you come to an agreement about the joint style that you’re sharing, you’re going to end up in a good place.

So you mentioned something about that, that you wanted to…

A little brain teaser I learned years ago, and I’ve yet to have anybody correctly answer. If you could use the word that five times consecutively in a sentence correctly. So in other words, at some point in the sentence, you’d have the phrase that, that, that, that, that, with no stuttering involved. The setup is there is a teacher in a classroom teaching the proper use of the word that. A student uses the word that in a sentence, and the teacher replies, I believe that, that, that, that that student used was correct.

Sweet! Say it again, please.

I believe that, that, that, that that student used was correct.

Oh, wow. So there’s some commas in there. That’s good, yeah. That’s nice.

Oh, gosh. Thank you for the help with that question, and I’ll relay it to those who may or may not take it into consideration.

Okay, well, don’t get us in trouble.

No, it’ll be all me.

Okay.

All right. Thank you, Doug.

All right. Take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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