"That"

Question

Hey everyone, I would like to ask a question.Which one is the correct sentence:1. I hope that this is acceptable.2. I hope this is acceptable.?I really much appreciate your help Thanks,Galia

Enoon · Accepted Answer

They are equally correct.

Galia · Answer

Thanks... That what I thought.
But is the second sentence is a slang?

Enoon · Answer

galiaThanks... That what I thought.But is the second sentence is a slang?

"But is the second sentence slang?" No. Slang is not correct by definition.

You can almost always leave off "that". My personal rule is to use it when I can in formal writing and to omit it when I can in informal writing. The version with "that" is usually clearer, too.

Galia · Answer

Thanks. This is exactly what I thought.

CalifJim · Answer

enoonSlang is not correct by definition.

CJ

Enoon · Answer

CalifJim enoonSlang is not correct by definition.CJ

I'll take that emoticon as an invitation to explain. Slang depends for its very existence upon a certain unconventionality. It is edgy, or it is not slang. When Hubert Humphrey promised to tell it as it is, he displayed a failure to understand the nature of slang. Slang is rebellious. Slang is anything but correct.

CalifJim · Answer

enoonI'll take that emoticon as an invitation to explain. Slang depends for its very existence upon a certain unconventionality. It is edgy, or it is not slang. When Hubert Humphrey promised to tell it as it is, he displayed a failure to understand the nature of slang. Slang is rebellious. Slang is anything but correct.

It sounds like you are not talking about grammatical correctness, but about your personal preferences for word choices. I don't see how a difference in a preference for one word or another amounts to being incorrect.

For example, it seems to me that in your view the following sentence is incorrect because it contains slang.

The problem I faced at the beginning of the day had me completely discombobulated, but by the end of the day I had solved it and everything was copacetic. (Both discombobulate and copacetic are listed as slang in my dictionary.)

Surely you can't mean that a word classified as slang is itself incorrect. That would be like saying spinach is incorrect.

CJ

Enoon · Answer

Now that you mention it, yes, slang words are imprecisely defined, necessarily so, having as they do no pedigree or established usage history or natural etymology, and are therefore unsuitable for formal writing. In many settings they are incorrect. But that's not what we were talking about. The OP asked about the correctness of the grammar of a simple sentence and asked whether a perfectly natural and time-honored locution was slang. I still say that such a sentence cannot be both slang and correct.

I calls 'em like I sees 'em. (That was slang. You must admit we have to call that incorrect for our learners?)

CalifJim · Answer

enoonI calls 'em like I sees 'em.

We have different definitions of 'slang'. Of course the quoted sentence is not appropriate for formal writing, but I don't even consider that slang. Slang for me is, more or less, that collection of words that most dictionaries label 'Slang'.

CJ

Enoon · Answer

CalifJim enoonI calls 'em like I sees 'em.We have different definitions of 'slang'. Of course the quoted sentence is not appropriate for formal writing, but I don't even consider that slang. Slang for me is, more or less, that collection of words that most dictionaries label 'Slang'. CJ

Yeah, and not only that, what do we mean by "incorrect"? By "slang" I mean English that depends on unconventionality for impact, and by "incorrect" I mean not standard. By the way, slang itself has correct and incorrect forms.

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