Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 11:54:02 -0700

From: Peter McGraw pmcgraw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LINFIELD.EDU

Subject: Re: "is is" (formerly "as best as")



I'm with Bryan's mother. I've been hearing "the 'is' stutter" for a long

time now, and it bothers me, too. I once even heard someone, I think on

the radio, say, "The thing of it is is, is that (there are too many

sheepdogs, or whatever)." Here at Linfield we have a computer director

who will string together five or so "is's" before he quits spinning his

wheels and resumes the sentence.



The first such construction I ever heard was from a friend in a place

where I formerly lived, who was wont to say, "The point being is..."

Obviously he had reanalyzed "being" into a modifier of "point" and thus

still needed a verb. Something of the sort must be happening with the "is

is" utterances, though it seems less clear why.



I, too, have always figured that "as best as" was a conflation of "as

best (you can)" with "as well as (you can)."



Peter





On Fri, 25 Jul 1997, Bryan Gick wrote:



The recent thread on "as best as" reminds me of something pointed out to

me by my mother. She's been noticing, to her continual annoyance, that

seemingly respectable and well-educated TV newsfolk and politicians have

taken to saying "is" twice in some constructions, like:



"The problem is is there are too many sheepdogs on the board of directors."



This has the same intonation as -- and is presumbably an analogy from --

constructions like: "What the problem is is..."

Anybody heard this?



What the reason the "as best as" thing reminded me of this is is (whew)

that I suspect "as best as" is similarly based on analogy from "to do x as

best one can/could/etc." (without the second "as"). This sounds a bit

archaic to me and wasn't in my native dialect of NW PA, but I have heard

it often in other dialects. Much more common, of course, is the "as...as"

comparative construction, and hence, presumably, the analogy.

Thoughts?

Bryan



On Thu, 17 Jul 1997, Duane Campbell wrote:

Watching the Senate Finance Committee hearings just now (I don't have

much of a life), an attorney asked, "As best as you can remember . . ."

It seems to me that in the last few years this phrase has almost

completely replaced "as well as", even among well educated speakers. It

grates on my ears. Am I wrong to think that this is grammatically

incorrect, that you cannot compare a superlative? Is it language

inflation? Or am I just being picky?