And That's That

But that's not all

That a medical doctor would be the one to cure a writer of a bad habit is hardly noteworthy. Writers are often prone to bad habits needing a doctor's attention. At least, that is what many people believe. Conventional wisdom has many believing writers'' bad habits are the kind that usually come corked. Scotch. Champagne for the odd days when a publisher accepts their work. Or table plunk while they labour to get their work that deserves to be published, published.

No, that is not the bad habit that I am referring to here and that is not the bad habit that this writer had and continues to battle. That bad habit was that. The word 'that', that is. Using 'that' where that was unnecessary or worse, grammatically incorrect is something that plaques many people and that is a fact. It was something that I swore I would correct, but as you can see, that is easier said then done. Just look where I have used 'that' that was unnecessary.

In the dull, sleep-inducing lexicon of language, 'that' can be a pronoun, adverb, determiner or conjunction. Certainly, that can lead to confusion and certainly misuse. That we know. I am now that much more aware of that and try to strike it from my writing whenever that's possible. That is something we should all do, especially those who are trying to write in a manner that is meant to make them sound erudite, educated or passably intelligent. Politicians of all walks of life and education struggle with that. For example, small town mayors, like Rob Ford, of Toronto Canada struggle with that. And more. (No doubt you have heard all about Rob Ford and everything that he has done or that has put Toronto on the world stage where it so desperately wanted to play. But that is another story for another time.)

So far in this brief article I have misused 'that' many times. And that is without even trying. 'That' is the crabgrass of language: it creeps into sentences everywhere: sentences that would do just fine, maybe better, without it.

I am not alone in my misuse of 'that'. Of that you can be sure and for that I am thankful. Guilt, like misery, loves company. "You're not the only one that does that" you may think and that is the most glaring of misuses of that word 'that'. I am not a ‘that’. I am a ‘who’ although I don't hail from Whoville (more on that another time).

I now see that everywhere. It is something that will hound me to my writer's grave; something that I am not looking forward to or wish to accelerate. Often, misuse of that is something that is easy to see. Other times, 'that' is something that goes undetected by all but the most attentive, such as school teachers and doctors. I try to avoid both. But whether it is a newspaper article, an online paid-by-the-word on-and-on it goes article or a badly written ad, the word 'that' is something that more often than not jumps off the page and when it does I can think of one thing only: Dr. James Steward, the doctor who politely pointed out that I was making mistakes with that. That was very gracious of him. However, I don't know which would be more embarrassing: that use of that or getting undressed for that most unwelcome examination; the kind that requires rubber gloves, laboratory paraphernalia and things like that.