234. Adjective and Pronoun Uses of “that”

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“That” the singular of “those” has some surprising uses

KEY FEATURES

Dictionaries usually have multiple entries for that, thus showing it not to be a single word. It is indeed a prime example of what I have elsewhere called a “multi-use” word: it can be an adjective, pronoun, adverb or conjunction, and its pronoun uses are of two very different kinds (see 153. Conjunction Uses of “that”).

The uses that I wish to focus on in this post have three notable features in common: they both have the /æ/ vowel (rhyming with sat) rather than the weak /ә/ (as in the); they are both closely related to this; and they can both be put into the plural form those. This focus means that one of the two pronoun uses of that – as a “relative” resembling which – is excluded (see instead 34. Relative Pronouns and Commas), but the use of those is included. 

Of course, adjective and pronoun uses of that receive plenty of attention at fairly low levels in English coursebooks. The reason for their inclusion in this blog, which is generally about more advanced or rarely-encountered topics, is that they have uses which are either rarely mentioned or covered under other grammatical headings. My hope is that placing everything together here will lead to a greater understanding of the essence of these words.

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ADJECTIVE USES

The adjective-like use of that is in combination with a following noun (or equivalent). Of course, if the noun is plural, that must change to those (See 204. Grammatical Agreement, #2a). This form variability is an indication that that is actually rather different from most English adjectives, as they do not usually change their form according to whether their noun is singular or plural. In fact, most grammarians place that in a special class of adjective-like words called “determiners”, other members of which include the, this, their and much. For more examples, see 110. Nouns without “the” or “a”.

One major use of adjective-like that in professional writing is referring back to any part of an immediately-preceding statement except its subject:

(a) Early scientists believed fire came from “phlogiston”, an invisible substance inside combustible bodies. That idea was discarded after the discovery of oxygen.

Here, that idea refers back to the belief of early scientists. It is an example of what I have elsewhere called “repetition for linking” (see 24. Good and Bad Repetition). One could actually use that by itself (i.e. as a pronoun), but using it with a noun is usually recommended in the interests of clarity.

An important question concerning back-referring that is how it differs from the very similar usage of this (see 28. Pronoun Errors, #2). With other uses of that, of course, most students of English learn that the difference is usually one of distance in space or time: this indicating near the speaker, that further away. These ideas can partially explain the difference with respect to the back-referring use.

Choosing between this and that according to distance in time seems as possible with the back-referring use as it is in everyday English. In sentence (a), for example, part of the reason for preferring that to this is the historical nature of the idea of phlogiston (for a further example, see 193. A Test of Formal Language Use, #24). By contrast, the space difference seems with the back-referring use to be often metaphorical, indicating not a physical distance but an intellectual one: sentence (a) says the writer is as distanced in agreement with the idea of “phlogiston” as s/he is in time.

A second notable use of adjective-like that actually requires the plural those. The subsequent plural noun is usually followed by a “defining” relative clause or preposition equivalent:

(b) “That” is one of those small words with multiple uses.

Those here signals both that the following noun idea is a subgroup and that the addressee has been familiar with it for some time. Alternative meanings are created by replacing the underlined part of (b) with the following:

THE small words…: indicating a subgroup and assuming its familiarity through a recent mention.

VARIOUS small words…: indicating a subgroup and assuming no addressee familiarity with it.

For more on assumed familiarity, see 235. Special Uses of “the”, #1.

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PRONOUN USES

That by itself has more uses than the adjective-like version in formal writing. As indicated above, it too can refer back. However, like the adjective (and like this) it cannot usually refer further back than to the previous sentence. Reference further back can be done instead with the above, the previous… or, possibly, all this (never all these) (see 48. Tricky Word Contrasts 1, #4).

The following are notable additional uses:

1. In Fixed Phrases

English has some words that are combined often enough with that for the two together to qualify as a “collocation” – a frequently-occurring word partnership with a single overall meaning. Most tend to be classified grammatically as “connectors” (see 259. Multi-Word Connectors).

Perhaps the most familiar connector phrase is after that, an introducer of a new event or stage in a series, especially one in the past (see 282. Features of History Writing, #5) or the future (new stages in general instruction and process descriptions tend to prefer after this: see 210. Process Descriptions, #2). Another common connector is that is to say (= in other words), often abbreviated to i.e. (see 130. Formal Abbreviations). That cannot be replaced by this.

Other connectors are with that, upon that, at that and that said. The first three are again perhaps most typical in historical and fictional narrative. They indicate that an event described after them follows on immediately from one described before:

(c) Suddenly the stage was enveloped in smoke. With that, the curtain descended.

With that shows closeness in time rather than space, rather like with before a participle at the end of a sentence (see 88. Exotic Grammar Structures 1, #7). Upon that seems more likely when the two events have the same subject (see 289. Exotic Grammar Structures 8, #4).

At that is usable as both a connector and a more ordinary adverb. The former means “in immediate response” and as such usually introduces a description of consequential human or animal behaviour:

(d) The team announced that a wonder cure had been found. At that, everyone applauded.

As an ordinary adverb, at that usually follows an adjective or adverb, adding a second good or bad feature to a just-mentioned one:

(e) The work was accomplished quickly, and cheaply at that.

Here, cheaply is highlighted as a good feature added to the good one quickly. An example of an added bad feature might be …an illness, and a severe one at that. The …at that addition often follows a comma + and, but it could follow a full stop without and.

That said does actually contain a participle, and it can also have with in front. Its meaning is very like that of nevertheless, introducing a statement that sounds contradictory after a point before it:

(f) Consumers will generally seek to purchase goods offering the best value for money. That said, they will pay a very high price for something that they desperately desire.

Other notable fixed expressions are the questions is that all? and how about that? (see 274. Questions with a Hidden Meaning, #4 and #21).

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2. Marking an End

In speech, that + BE often announces the end of a topic, section or performance. That’s all and That’s it are common ways of doing this informally and briefly. That’s that additionally implies that further discussion is useless or forbidden. It can also highlight completion of a task, along with resultant satisfaction.

In oral presentations, where the audience lack time to think about the overall structure of what they are trying to understand, so that they need plentiful “signpost” language to help them, that is (or those are) before the name of a just-finished topic is useful for signposting its end:

(g) So that is (or those are) the main argument(s) against the proposal. Now what can be said in favour?

For details of this and other types of oral signposting, see 186. Language in Oral Presentations.

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3. Replacing “the one(s)”

The one(s) is a pronoun that can replace a countable noun representing one or more obvious members of a wider group (see 63. Constraints on Using “the one/s”). It normally needs descriptive wording before and/or after it (e.g. the red one; the ones in the middle) in order to identify the exact group members meant.

That/Those can only replace the one(s) when the descriptive wording comes after, e.g. the ones/those in the middle. Such replacement is particularly common in professional writing because it sounds more formal. One type of sentence where it is very likely to be found is comparisons like the following:

(h) The growth rate in the North is higher than that in the South.

For more on such sentences, see 170. Logical Errors in Written English, #3.

There is one situation where the meaning of the one can only be expressed by that or an ordinary noun: where the noun in question is uncountable, e.g. information. For details, see the above-mentioned post on the one/s.

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4. Referring to People in General (“those” only)

If those is directly before a preposition or wh- without representing any noun idea from a previous sentence or external context, it usually means people in general. This is the intended meaning in the following proverb, also quoted in 211. General Words for People:

(i) Those who live by the sword die by the sword.

For those here not to mean people in general, there would need to be a mention in the previous sentence of a subgroup of people such as robbers. Those would then mean “the ones” (its singular form being the one, not that).

The “people in general” meaning of those is also possible in sentences like the following:

(j) Those who want value for money are consumers.

Without a context, those here could be referring back to a just-mentioned specific human group, but it could also just mean people in general, in which case who… would be introducing a subgroup equating to consumers at the end. Organizing a sentence in this way says unambiguously that its primary information is at the end after are (or other form of BE).

Many sentences can use BE as a secondary verb near the end, as in (j), in order to highlight key information like consumers. However, most need to begin with what. Those who is necessary instead if the key information is a group of people. For more details, see 145. Highlighting with “What…” Sentences.

233. Structures with a Double Meaning 3

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Some grammar structures are able to be understood in more than one way, just like some words

DOUBLE-MEANING STRUCTURES IN ENGLISH

Structures in language are a result of combining multiple meaningful parts together according to a rule. They can be a single word (e.g. a combination of a “root” and a “suffix” – see 26. One Word or Two?), or a group of words, or a group of word groups. This post, like others with a similar title (listed in 124. Structures with a Double Meaning 1), is about a particular kind of structure in the latter two groups: able to be understood in two or more different ways.

Structures of this type are relatively rare, but they are useful to know about to reduce both misunderstanding in reading and ambiguity in writing (see 265. Grammar Tools for Better Writing, #6). They may be illustrated by the combination of BE + -ing verb (e.g. is considering), which could be taken as either a composite verb in the present continuous tense, or BE with a “complement” in the noun-like “gerund” form (see 69. How Computers Get Grammar Wrong 2 and 71. Gerund and Participle Uses of “-ing”).

The aim of this post is to offer a further list of fairly common multi-word combinations that can be interpreted in alternative ways. To read about single words with a variable meaning, see 3. Multi-Use Words,  7. Metaphorical Meanings,  11. Homonyms and Homographs,  116. Rarer Uses of HAVE,  121. Sentence-Spanning Adverbs and 256. Unusual Meanings of Familiar Words.

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EXAMPLES OF DOUBLE-MEANING STRUCTURES

1. Adjacent Nouns in a List

Two nouns immediately next to each other often refer to the same thing (see 77. Apposition). However, inside a list of four or more nouns they can also refer to two different things, so that readers have to fall back on logic or personal knowledge to discover the right meaning. Sometimes, though, these cannot help. Consider this:

(a) The itinerary includes the old city, the home of the last king, the modern state buildings and the famous bridge.

How many places does this refer to? In fact, the answer is not clear: it could be three or four. In one interpretation, the old city and the home of the last king are two descriptions of the same place; in another, they refer to two separate places. The right interpretation will probably be obvious to local residents, but visitors will be unsure.

The circumstances that make this double meaning possible are the logical ability of the two expressions to refer to the same place, plus their position before and in the list. The first circumstance would not exist above if, for example, the home of the last king was replaced by the new city. The second is necessary because otherwise and would be either before both of the expressions, marking them as equivalent to each other, or between them so that there would definitely be no equivalence and they would just be separate parts of the list (see 54. Sentence Lists 1).

The two meanings involve different types of comma use. When the noun expressions refer to the same thing, the commas around the second one, the home of the last king above, are bracket-like; but when the reference is to different things, the commas are of the listing kind (see 50. Right and Wrong Comma Places). For a further way in which listing and parenthetical commas can be confused, see 288. Grammatical Subtleties, #3.

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2. HAVE + Object + Verb

Elementary English courses usually say this structure expresses deliberate use of a service, as in have spellings checked or have a car serviced. However, it is also a way of expressing involuntary experiences like have possessions stolen and had their bag searched. Normally, readers can distinguish the two uses through their familiarity with the occurrences involved: they know car repairs usually result from free choice and stolen possessions do not (see 116. Rarer Uses of HAVE).

A double meaning exists with occurrences that may or may not involve free choice. There may be subjectivity – different people having different understandings of the concept – or simply a lack of information. Take, for example, had their work published. This could be a result of writers actively organizing publication themselves, or it could just have happened without any involvement by them, the decision having been taken by a publishing company. Without knowing how the publishing was put into action, we cannot be sure of the exact meaning of HAVE.

There can be the same uncertainty when the object of HAVE precedes a verb in the base form (a “bare infinitive” – see 148. Infinitive Verbs without “to”, #2). For example, had in had the hospital call them could mean “experienced” (the hospital having chosen to make the contact) or “caused” (perhaps through having made an earlier request). Without knowing why the call was made, we cannot be sure of the exact meaning of HAVE.

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3. “Quite” + Adjective

Most English coursebooks point out that the meaning of quite is not constant before adjectives and adjectives, meaning “fairly” before some (e.g. quite easy) and “completely” before others (e.g. quite obvious). Each meaning is a result of the kind of adjective or adverb being used: “fairly” with “gradable” ones, “completely” with “non-gradable” ones.

Gradable adjectives and adverbs represent qualities that can exist in different amounts. For example, a task can be more or less easy. Non-gradable adjectives and adverbs, on the other hand, represent qualities that cannot exist in different amounts, but are either present or absent. For example, something cannot be more or less obvious: reducing this quality removes it altogether.

A problem with all of this, however, is that the distinction between gradability and non-gradability is often subjective, so that a fair number of adjectives and adverbs are liable to be classified differently by different people (see 194. Adverbs that Say How Much). It is these that can lead to double meanings. I would suggest that adjectives with which quite can be understood as having either of its two meanings include able, alarming, certain, desperate, noticeable, open (= honest), remarkable, suitable and typical.

For more about quite, see 231. Confusions of Similar Structures 3, #2, and 313. Adverbs Linked Closely to a Noun.

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4. Adjective + “to” Verb

Some adjectives can combine with an immediately-following to verb (infinitive) to make a longer adjective phrase (see 203. Expanding an Adjective with Words after it). There are two different ways of understanding the infinitive in these phrases, depending on the type of adjective involved. Compare:

(b) Foreign languages are useful to know.

(c) Foreign languages are sure to fascinate.

In (b), the object of the infinitive to know is foreign languages, the subject of the sentence; whereas in (c) the object of to fascinate (something like “people”) is unmentioned. It seems that the adjectives useful in (b) and sure in (c) always necessitate these interpretations. Most other adjectives that allow a following to verb can be classified as like either useful or sure, usually according to their meaning (see 83. Adjectives before a “to” Verb).

However, some adjectives – for example quick – can be used in both ways. Normally, this is not a problem because only one of the two meanings will be logical:

(d) Pasta is quick to prepare.

(e) Jones (2019, p. 47) is quick to disagree.

Nevertheless, there are situations where the right interpretation is less certain:

(f) Programs must be quick to understand.

One interpretation here is that programs must be understood quickly; the other is that they must themselves understand quickly. For such double meanings to exist, the infinitive needs two properties: a logical meaning in either interpretation, and ability to be used both with and without a grammatical object. Disagree in (e) cannot have an object, so that no double meaning is possible, but understand in (f) can.

There are two different types of verb that are usable either with or without an object. UNDERSTAND is what I call “object-dropping”: if no object is mentioned, we still understand one, recognising that it has just been left unmentioned because it is obvious (see 8. Object-Dropping Errors). In (f), understand has either programs as a mentioned object or a noun like messages as an unmentioned one.

The other kind of verb usable with or without an object has a different meaning in each case. For example, OPERATE with an object means “put…into action” but without one means simply “function”. Consider this example with ready, another adjective like quick:

(g) The machine was ready to operate.

If the machine here is the object of operate, we understand that it “was ready for someone to put into action”. However if the machine is not the object of operate, we understand that it was “ready to function by itself”. For more about verbs like OPERATE, see 4. Verbs that don’t have to be Passive.

Besides quick and ready, adjectives with a potential for a double meaning include available, bad, enough, (un)fit, good, slow and sufficient. For more about enough and sufficient, see 189. Expressing Sufficiency.

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5. Word-Omission with “than”

Omitting words to avoid repetition is particularly possible with conjunctions (see 174. Eight Things to Know about Conjunctions, #6). The conjunction than is very commonly used with omitted words, especially when the comparison is between two noun ideas. Consider what might have been omitted in the following:

(h) Children usually need to sleep longer than adults.

The missing words here are probably the verb phrase …need to sleep, or at least a substitute like do (see 212. Special Uses of “Do” 1). We know that a verb is implied because than is a conjunction, a kind of word that typically links with verbs.

In (h), the verb before than, sleep, has a single associated noun: its subject children. This is an “intransitive” use very typical of this verb. However, than is also often used after a verb linked to two or more nouns:

(i) Children usually need more sleep than adults.

Now sleep is, like children, a noun before than. It is in such sentences that double meanings can arise. Readers have to decide which of the two nouns is contrasting with the noun after than. In (i), this is not a problem: logic tells us that adults must contrast with children, not sleep, so that do has been dropped after adults, not they need before it.

However, consider the following:

(j) Disruption was caused more by climate change than storms.

Does storms here contrast with disruption or climate change? Is the unmentioned wording were after storms (saying disruption was the main result of climate change, not storms), or it was caused by after than (saying climate change was the main cause of disruption, not storms)? Such double meanings are always a danger when than follows a verb and two nouns. The way to prevent them is to leave fewer words unmentioned. For example, adding by before storms above would solve the problem instantly.