It Or That?
Hi,
Which sounds to you more natural? "What does that have to do with it?" or "What does it have to do with that?" ?
I'd go with the second one. I just "feel" it's more natural, though I'm not a native speaker.
BTW, is the phrasing OK? Here I'm asking the other side of conversation to explain "Why" the two things being mentioned have some kind of relevance.
Thank you.
Top answer
movo Which sounds to you more natural? What does that have to do with it? Also What has that got to do with it?
- movo Which sounds to you more natural?
- What does that have to do with it?
- Also What has that got to do with it?
- We sometimes use this as a rhetorical question to suggest that 'that' is irrelevant.
- A typical formulation is What has that got to do with the price of tea in China?
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movoWhich sounds to you more natural?
What does that have to do with it? Also What has that got to do with it?
We sometimes use this as a rhetorical question to suggest that 'that' is irrelevant. A typical formulation is
What has that got to do with the price of tea in China?
And of course the Tina Turner song,
0movoWhich sounds to you more natural? "What does that have to do with it?" or "What does it have to do with that?"
"that" has a stronger demonstrative emphasis than "it", so the choice depends on where this emphasis is required -- whether on the thing being compared, or on what it is being compared to. Of these two, the first version is the norm. The second
0
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