Questions about repeating a given word in a phrase, sentence, or short passage of text.
22
votes
7answers
3k views
How do you handle “that that”? The double “that” problem
Have you ever had a case where you felt compelled to include strange things like a double that in a sentence? If so, then what did you do to resolve this?
For me, I never knew whether it was ...
7
votes
7answers
9k views
What does “had had” mean? How does this differ from “had”?
For example, what is the difference between the following two sentences:
I had a bad day
I had had a bad day
7
votes
4answers
277 views
Transcribing long repeating phone numbers
I always have this problem of telling people my phone number which consists of a series of repeating numbers:
184 555 5555 (DO NOT CALL, this is just as an example)
I can tell people it is:
...
4
votes
2answers
1k views
How to properly write sentence with double words
I commonly come across sentences where I have to write the same word twice such as,
This is what I've been looking for for a long time.
and in these cases I just try to rewrite the sentence to ...
4
votes
2answers
637 views
Rules about prepositions and duplicating 'to'
On occasion, I end up writing sentences that contain a duplicate word, often what is probably a preposition (or better yet, an adposition). The specific example that I just ran into involves a ...
6
votes
3answers
277 views
“Are you sure sure” — is this repetition grammatically correct?
A typical conversation among members of my age demographic could go like this:
Person 1: Did you know that x > y?!?
Person 2: Are you sure?
Person 1: Yeah, I'm sure.
Person 2: Are ...
0
votes
1answer
555 views
Better use of “that that” — or not [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
How do you handle “that that”? The double “that” problem
I sometimes seem to write myself into using 2 thats in succession, as in:
"Now that ...
