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Let's think about it that you're alone in this world and have to live on your own.

Q1) Is the above sentence correct?

Q2) Is "it" referring to "that you're alone in this world...on your own"?

Q3) Can "of" be used instead of "about" in the sentence above?

Q4) In informal settings, can I say or write without "that" as "Let's think about it you're alone in this world and have to live on your own"?

Q5) Is the original sentence different in meaning from this sentence "Let's think that you're alone in this world and have to live on your own"? and which sentence is better?

GPY · Accepted Answer

fire1Let's think about it that you're alone in this world and have to live on your own.
Q1) Is the above sentence correct?

It's loosely written. I wouldn't say that it is properly correct English. It also isn't very clear to me whether it is describing an imaginary situation or an actual situation.

fire1Q2) Is "it" referring to "that you're alone in this world...on your own"?

Loosely I suppose, but not in a directly substitutable way.

fire1Q3) Can "of" be used instead of "about" in the sentence above?

Loosely.

fire1Q4) In informal settings, can I say or write without "that" as "Let's think about it you're alone in this world and have to live on your own"?

You can say it, provided there is some kind of pause after "it". When you write it, you need to represent this pause with punctuation, such as "...", or maybe a full stop, otherwise the sentence appears to be a run-on error.

fire1Q5) Is the original sentence different in meaning from this sentence "Let's think that you're alone in this world and have to live on your own"? and which sentence is better?

"Let's think that you're alone ..." seems unusual to me. It may just be a slightly faulty or less clear way of saying "Let's imagine/suppose that you're alone ...".

CalifJim · Answer

fire1
Let's think about it that you're alone in this world and have to live on your own.

Q1) Is the above sentence correct? No.
Q2) Is "it" referring to "that you're alone in this world...on your own"? I suppose the writer intends that, but it's not grammatical to construct the sentence like that.
Q3) Can "of" be used instead of "about" in the sentence above? We're talking about a faulty sentence, so it seems pointless to answer this. Changing "about" to "of" is not going to fix the problem.
Q4) In informal settings, can I say or write without "that" as "Let's think about it you're alone in this world and have to live on your own"? As for Q3, this change won't help. In fact, it seems even more strange this way.
Q5) Is the original sentence different in meaning from this sentence "Let's think that you're alone in this world and have to live on your own"? and which sentence is better? It's sometimes hard to guess what a faulty sentence is supposed to mean, so there's really no definite comparison to make here.

I think you want one of the following:

Let's think about the fact that we're each alone in this world and have to live on our own.
Let's consider the question of whether we're each alone in this world and have to live on our own.

CJ

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