Syntactic double occurrences of a word in English

[A. BETTIK]

that that
had had

What else?

Does this occur in other languages?

 

[IRC]

do do

As in, "Make sure that you do do that."


(stop giggling!)

 

[Perham1]

What what?

Hip hip. (hooray)

Double-Double (as in your favorite In-N-Out order).

 

[Dionysus]

You said do do.

 

[Perham1]

Yeah yeah.

 

[longtex]

uh uh

 

[Uninformed]

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[OldHippie]

"...what the meaning of the word 'is' is."

This one doesn't really fit the case because "is" becomes a noun when it is quoted so it loses its natural syntax. But it's a famous quote so I wanted to throw it in.

 

[Statalyzer]

That that is is not that that is not, and that that is not is not that that is.

There was only one difference between Tim's paragraph and Tom's: Tim had 'had' where Tom had 'had had' and had 'had had' where Tom had 'had'.

 

[OldHippie]

On a distantly related topic: "bookkeeping" has three consecutive double letters.

 

[longtex]

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[TXSNOS]

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[longtex]

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[RayDog]

That that that is is.

I recall an English prof saying that sentence is the only 5 word long sentence composed of two different words in English literature.

 

[Texanne]

RayDog,

It seems there should be some punctuation in that sentence, but I really don't know.

 

[Gone To Texas]

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[Gone To Texas]

From "On The Field"

"Last week's offensive offensive showing..."

 

[Statalyzer]

OU sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks.

 

[jcdenton]

"What I want to know is, is that the best he can do?"

Or:

"What I wanted to know was, was that the best he could do?"

Of course one of my pet peeves, which I notice on practically a daily basis, is when people repeat the "is" or "was" even when it's completely redundant:

"What he wanted to know was, was does OU suck?"

"What I like to see is, is when girls romance each other".

Which looks pretty idiotic when written-out, but when people are talking out loud and they say sentences like those above, I would have to say I hear them repeat the "is" or "was" almost every time.

I'm guessing it has something to do with the extra is/was making the sentence flow more smoothly (going into and coming out of the pause) or some **** like that, but whatever the explanation may be I still find it really annoying.

 

[overmaars]

there there, now now. consoling those who couldn't think of more.

 

[Statalyzer]

Kind of archaic, but "hear hear" to indicate agreement.

 

[OldHippie]

Nudge, nudge; wink, wink.
Monty Python

 

[A. BETTIK]

...walking by by chance...

 

[Orange&White]

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[general35]

after reading this post...plop, plop, fizz, fizz...

 

[overmaars]

relish relish

 

[darius]

OU sucks

 

[X-Ray_Horn]

Not precisely on topic, but one of my best journalism professors at Texas (older, curmudgeonly guy in the early 80's, can't recall his name) taught us the word "that" is almost always unnecessary.

In fact, I just resisted the urge to insert "that" into the above sentence before "the word."

 

[Statalyzer]

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[A. BETTIK]

I guess a whole subset family would have to be devoted to meta-references involving adverbs and conjunctions.

and 'and' is used when both conjuncts...
but 'but' is used when both disjuncts...
however, 'however' is a word used...
although, 'although' can be used...
even 'even' is a word...
gladly, 'gladly' can be used...
Tomorrow, 'tomorrow' will be too late.
etc.