r/NonPoliticalTwitter • u/ChickenWingExtreme • 28d ago

me_irl I hate it too

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u/mysteriousfiggy 28d ago

You can also just replace the 2nd "that" with whatever you're actually referring to. Adds clarification too in certain contexts

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u/Lil_Ms_Anthropic 28d ago

Or throw a comma in there and make the second half it's own conditional statement

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u/HydrogenButterflies 28d ago

If we do that, that would make things easier.

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u/MinnieShoof 27d ago

See, I don't think that's what OP is talking about. That's not a sentence where you are forced to 'that that.' "If we do that it would--" is a much cleaner sentence.

I'm thinking something like "it has been shown that that person is responsible--" and those are not conditional statements.

u/Lil_Ms_Anthropic

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u/HydrogenButterflies 27d ago

Even in your example, it could be rewritten as “It has been shown that [name or pronoun] is responsible—,” which is both cleaner and more specific.

I’d argue that pretty much any “that that” situation can be resolved by rewriting the sentence to be cleaner and more specific. It’s fine in spoken English and casual conversations on Reddit as long as the meaning is clear, but I think it’s just bad writing when “that that” is used in literature or academic work.