Date: Fri, 26 Dec 1997 13:21:46 -0500

From: Ron Butters RonButters[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM

Subject: WEIRD EXISTENTIAL



I recently had a two-hour conversation with my real-estate-lending agent. He

has a peculiar syntactic form that I wonder if is just an idiosyncrasy or if

others are familir with it as well. He begins sentences with IS THAT used as

an existential, as in



"Okay. Is that we have to see copies of your 1996 tax returns."



"Well, now, thats done. Is that we need to calculate your gross income for

1997."



This guy is a native speaker. Born in New York. Is he weird or what?