President Obama's idiolect

[Perd Hapley]

Does the Obama say "the thing is is" a lot?

For years now I've been noticing the increasing prevalence of the grammatically unmotivated doubling of is, as in "The thing is is that..." This is not a matter of insufficient education or literacy; President Obama does it so regularly it could be considered part of his idiolect.

http://www.languagehat.com/archives/003660.php


I only happened upon this site, trying to find what out what "rusé" means, in some J. Fenimore Cooper novel. 

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rus%C3%A9

[CNYCacher]

One of my peeves is using the word "which" in place of "and", or, not fully forming the end of the sentence following what would be a proper use of "which".


 

[Gowen]

Does the Obama say "the thing is is" a lot?
 

Can you define the meaning of "IS"?  ~William Jefferson Clinton

On a side note, Firefox spell check still has Obama as a misspelled word.  Maybe that's a sign of the current Presidency.

[Doggy Daddy]

Misspelled word... misspent presidency...

You say tomato.

DD

[lee n. field]

Can you define the meaning of "IS"?  ~William Jefferson Clinton

On a side note, Firefox spell check still has Obama as a misspelled word.  Maybe that's a sign of the current Presidency.

Heh!  So it does.

[sanglant]

odd, mine has oBAM!o as correct.