The Double Is

The funny thing is, is that the English language has a way of adapting that isn’t always sensible or logical.

Does the above sentence bother you? It’s an example of a grammatical quirk that really grinds my gears: the double-is.

“Well, see, the thing is, is…”

Why do people feel obligated to add that second “is” in there? One potential reason is to cue up the part of the sentence that follows the first “is”—the object that’s referred to by “the thing is” or “the problem is”, for instance.

So, it works like this: “The problem is, is…” and then the rest of the sentence describes exactly what the problem is. The hope is that the listener really focuses on the importance of that object. In this way, the rhythm of the speech is more important than the order of the words.

Language is always evolving. What starts out as an error or a quirk of speech can become a standard part of a language over time. The "double is" might be an example of this evolution in progress.

I’m old enough to remember when irregardless was considered wrong. Today, irregardless means exactly the same thing as regardless. How annoying!

And yet, that’s exactly how language evolves. It bothers those of us who have been around long enough to have “done the time.” We learned all these arcane grammar and spelling words and rules, damnit, so we are going to make sure everyone after us has to learn those same rules!

But the English language has a rich history of evolving and adapting, where words and grammatical structures that were once considered incorrect have become accepted over time. You might say this is a feature, not a bug, of English in particular.

Remember split infinitives? It’s okay if you don’t. That’s when you say something perfectly sensible, like, “Andrew hoped to never see another split infinitive again.”

See how I threw that “never” in there, in between the “to” and “see”? That used to be a real no-no too, but it has crept right into acceptable writing during my lifetime—probably during the earlier part; I remember split infinitives being taught in school, but popular books didn’t follow this rule strictly, if at all.

How about the rule never to end a sentence with a preposition? You couldn’t use a sentence like this in an essay when I was in high school: English grammar isn’t something I’m familiar with. Instead, you were supposed to write (or say): English grammar isn’t something with which I am familiar.

That seems unwieldy today, like trying to use a hammer instead of a screwdriver.

If the repurposing of the word “they” to describe individuals who prefer not to identify with a gender bothers you, you’re certainly not alone, and not everyone bothered by this is a raging bigot. With that said, English has never been static, and it continues to evolve right in front of our eyes.

I’m certainly at peace with “they” until something better comes along (if it ever does), and the split-infinitive rule never felt quite right to me. Same goes for ending a sentence in a preposition: the way English sounded to me, people did this all the time, even my teachers.

Irregardless and the double is, on the other hand, will continue to grind my gears for quite some time.

English is crazy, to say the least. I wrote about how words are pronounced here:

And, I wrote about naming numbers here:

I’ve written about ancient origins of words, too, and how we first began to decipher some of those root languages. I had no idea I was this interested in etymology when I was growing up, but today I can’t get enough of the stuff. I hope you’ll continue to indulge me for more pieces like these!

Have you ever noticed the “double is”? Are there any other spots where you can see language evolving in real time? Let’s talk about these things today!