I like to pretend that I’m a writer. One symptom of this is that I’m a stickler for precise use of the English language. That is to say that I’m constantly examining my own grammar, vocabulary, and those of others.

Sometimes, though, there are issues that I have with the English language itself. For example, placing words like “that” twice in succession in the same sentence. To illustrate: “I believe that that is annoying.” When spoken, such a phrase would make complete sense, since one would normally place extra emphasis on the second “that”, distinguishing the two. Yet when in written form, it could be mistaken for a typo.

I can see some people suggesting to omit the second “that”, believing that that would be acceptable. (You see what I did there?) It’s not that simple since there is a value to the second “that”. It serves as a qualifier, directing your attention to a specific point in the idea you’re expressing in such a sentence.

For example, “You can see that color is red,” is different from “You can see that that color is red”. In the first form, it gives the sense that you could be looking at that color anywhere around and acknowledge that it is red. On the other hand, in the second version, the speaker is still identifying the color, but on a specific object. Or it could be that the speaker is differentiating that color from other colors that are visible.

It’s a personal pet peeve of mine and it’s a challenge to construct sentences that detour from using that syntax. Some of my alternative sentences may appear a bit funny as a result, but I believe that they’re still far less confusing to read. Or maybe no one cares but me.

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