# "Suffice it to say" or "Suffice to say"?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suffice-it-to-say-or-suffice-to-say/256548>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 23, 2004, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suffice-it-to-say-or-suffice-to-say/256548 "2004-07-23T17:40:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Duderdude2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cdc98d/32.png) [@Duderdude2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duderdude2)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2004, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suffice-it-to-say-or-suffice-to-say/256548/1 "2004-07-23T17:40:39Z")

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Is the proper grammatical usage “Suffice it to say” or “Suffice to say”? I tried doing a Google search, and the former had more results, though both were significant. Here is the context in which the statement resides.

“Suffice it to say, if you don’t snag your lady of choice within the first couple of years, you may be stuck in single country (population: you) for your duration in Mineral town.”

Thanks.

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**Author:** ![Demo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demo/32/8472_2.png) [@Demo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Demo)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2004, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suffice-it-to-say-or-suffice-to-say/256548/2 "2004-07-23T17:48:49Z")

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“Suffice it to say”

Although I’m sure [Professor Strunk](http://www.bartleby.com/141/) would drop the whole phrase and just use:

“If you don’t snag your lady of choice within the first couple of years, you may be stuck in single country (population: you) for your duration in Mineral town.”

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**Author:** ![Demo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demo/32/8472_2.png) [@Demo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Demo)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2004, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suffice-it-to-say-or-suffice-to-say/256548/3 "2004-07-23T17:51:05Z")

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Sorry I didn’t have a cite. I did look it up [here](http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=8&q=suffice+it+to+say) and found no instances of the other version. That’s not strong evidence against it of course. I’m mainly going off of sentence structure, as “suffice it to say” is the same as saying “it suffices that”.

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**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2004, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suffice-it-to-say-or-suffice-to-say/256548/4 "2004-07-23T17:51:32Z")

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Google again using “suffice subjunctive” and you will find dozens of sites with excellent illustrations and explanations of the subjunctive mood. “Suffice it to say” is one idiomatic example.