XPost: alt.usage.english   
   From: snidely.too@gmail.com   
      
   On Wednesday, Aidan Kehoe queried:   
   >  Ar an chéad lá de mí Bealtaine, scríobh Antonio Marques:   
   >   
   >>>>>> Never mind that in the bit that Steve quoted to flippantly inquire on   
   >>>>>> what 'that' meant, it was quite explicitly said 'dither'.   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> The "it" there isn't idiomatic   
   >>>> The sentence sounded wrong to me, but even now I'm not sure why.   
   >>>> As to 'it', maybe it's not idiomatic, but is it ungrammatical? I don't   
   >>>> quite see it.   
   >>>   
   >>> "It" refers to "dither",   
   >>   
   >> No, it's an impersonal passive, and I've just found out that for the last   
   >> 30/40 years I may have been using a construct that english doesn't have.   
   >   
   > English does have an impersonal passive, and and what you wrote is   
   > grammatical, but again, not idiomatic. No one would have noticed or commented   
   > except that the sentence was posted to alt.usage.english. For me this   
   > formulating it so:   
   >   
   >   “Never mind that the bit, that Steve quoted to flippantly inquire on what   
   >   ‘that’ meant, explicitly said ‘dither’”   
   >   
   > reads a little more idiomatic.   
      
   I don't like the commas, despite the length of the phrase identifying   
   the bit.   
      
   /dps   
      
   --   
   You could try being nicer and politer   
   > instead, and see how that works out.   
        -- Katy Jennison   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)