# "Thats" isn't a word? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 16, 2013, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-isnt-a-word/674085 "2013-11-16T23:06:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2013, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-isnt-a-word/674085/21 "2013-11-17T07:53:43Z")
I’m not arguing that the English language should adopt my personal usage. I honestly thought this was standard correct usage. What prompted this thread was my writing a post in another thread and using thats in a sentence and having my spellchecker highlight it. My spellchecker does makes occasional mistakes and I assumed that was the case here. But I checked and found out I was wrong. Which I’ll admit surprised me. I like to credit myself with having a pretty good grasp of grammar and I’m not usually caught unaware by things like this. So I wanted to see if other people were making the same mistake I was. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2013, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-isnt-a-word/674085/22 "2013-11-17T08:33:58Z")
**Trinopus** suggested one use of “thats” and **Tread** suggested another use of “thats”. That’s two thatses already! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2013, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-isnt-a-word/674085/23 "2013-11-17T09:01:01Z")
I agree that there is a logical place for such a word, but it seems the English language wasn’t built on absolute logical consistency. You could just carry on using the word and as long as nobody forces your to stop, maybe it will catch on, and eventually be an accepted part of the language. ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2013, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-isnt-a-word/674085/24 "2013-11-17T11:35:22Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > **Trinopus** suggested one use of “thats” and **Tread** suggested another use of “thats”. That’s two thatses already! 🙂 Where’s the quotes go ? “It is dangerous drive cars thats indicators are defective” Its mixing up ownership meaning of “that”, with adding the s for ownership. Can’t just add an s to ownership to any word that implies ownership. Can’t just add an s to plural to any word to make it fit with the pluraity of the subject. S for ownership AND S For plural only goes on nouns. That is not unique to the singular or plural, so does not have the plural. You and They (for example, Yours , Theirs, etc ) are singular and plural to help talk about humans (and personified things.) ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2013, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-isnt-a-word/674085/25 "2013-11-17T11:43:46Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > But apparently not. It’s supposed to be: _It’s dangerous to drive a car whose headlights aren’t working._ Personify a car ? I don’t think so. Let it possess the headlights (A car that has defective headlights), or more abstract, let it match a moment in time when (somewhat ambiguous ) headlights are defective. “Its dangerous to drive a car WHEN the headlights are defective”… Yes a pendant might say this also means (for example) it is dangerous to drive MY car when YOUR Headlights are defective… … but of course, when the point of time was specified by AMBIGUOUS headlights, its not actually saying an incompatible car to headlights… We understand that it means the period of time when the RELEVANT headlights are defective. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2013, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-isnt-a-word/674085/26 "2013-11-17T12:42:26Z")
> [@Isilder](#): > > Yes a pendant might say this also means (for example) it is dangerous to drive MY car when YOUR Headlights are defective… Jewellery can’t talk. ---
**Author:** ![Longshanks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Longshanks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Longshanks)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2013, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-isnt-a-word/674085/27 "2013-11-17T22:08:39Z")
Why isn’t ‘thats’ grammatically correct? ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2013, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-isnt-a-word/674085/28 "2013-11-17T22:33:46Z")
Read a book. Count how many times the word that is used. How many thats were there? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2013, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-isnt-a-word/674085/29 "2013-11-17T23:39:01Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > . . . That’s two thatses already! 🙂 Love it! > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > . . . Which I’ll admit surprised me. I like to credit myself with having a pretty good grasp of grammar and I’m not usually caught unaware by things like this. So I wanted to see if other people were making the same mistake I was. No matter how good we are, there will (likely) still be a few rules of grammar that we never quite caught on to. They’re sneaky that way! It was less than five years ago that I learned that the word is spelled “judgment” and not “judgement.” Absolutely floored me. I’d been doing it wrong for decades. However, I find that “judgement” is a barely-tolerated variant, usually British, and so I will keep using it. > [@Longshanks](#): > > Why isn’t ‘thats’ grammatically correct? Not least because there already is a contraction, “that’s” – short for “that is” – that fills the role. It would be confusing to have two separate “right answers.” Also (breaks into song) _Tradition!_ ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2013, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-isnt-a-word/674085/30 "2013-11-18T02:34:19Z")
> [@california\_jobcase](#): > > Read a book. Count how many times the word that is used. > > How many thats were there? Surely that should be “thatses”. 😉 I am still not getting why **Little Nemo** and other supporters of “thats” think it doesn’t need an apostrophe. The argument in the OP has no force. ###'s can mean “### is” (or even “### has”), but in other contexts it can equally well mean “belonging to ###”: My dog’s fur is brown. My dog’s very well trained. My dog’s got no nose. All cromulent. (Not, to repeat, that I would really advocate “that’s”, let alone “thats” over "whose.) ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2013, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-isnt-a-word/674085/31 "2013-11-18T02:39:41Z")
Well … maybe I take that final parenthetical back: Here are two hills with flags on them. [Pointing to first one hill, then the other.] That’s flag is red; that’s is blue. “Whose” won’t do there. ---
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2013, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-isnt-a-word/674085/32 "2013-11-18T02:50:07Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Well … maybe I take that final parenthetical back: > > Here are two hills with flags on them. [Pointing to first one hill, then the other.] That’s flag is red; that’s is blue. > > “Whose” won’t do there. that’s not being used as a relative pronoun though irregardless doesn’t it sound better to say that one’s flag is red, that one’s is blue ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2013, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-isnt-a-word/674085/33 "2013-11-18T04:24:23Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > It seems to me that “that” is possessive there, so if you have to use it, it should follow the regular rule for possessives and take an _apostrophe **s** _: “that’s.” “Whose” and “its” (as a possessive) don’t have apostrophes, but they are irregular. Everything else, AFAIK, must have one. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think any possessive _pronouns_ have apostrophes. (its, his, hers, theirs, yours…) ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2013, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-isnt-a-word/674085/34 "2013-11-18T05:51:45Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think any possessive _pronouns_ have apostrophes. (its, his, hers, theirs, yours…) Nope, more of a rule than an exception. Apostrophes are only involved with regular nouns. Apparently, you can also use them if you are a grocer, and want to sell people _strawberrie’s_ or _apple’s_… ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2013, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-isnt-a-word/674085/35 "2013-11-18T06:00:19Z")
I have never heard of “thats” being a word. This is the first time I’ve come across it. As for “whose” being used with inanimate objects, [American Heritage Dictionary](http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/whose) finds it perfectly acceptable: **"It has sometimes been claimed that _whose_ is properly used only as the possessive form of _who_ and thus should be restricted to animate antecedents, as in _a man whose power has greatly eroded_. But there is extensive literary precedent for the use of _whose_ with inanimate antecedents, as in _The play, whose style is rigidly formal, is typical of the period_. In an earlier survey this example was acceptable to a large majority of the Usage Panel. Those who avoid this usage employ of _which_: _The play, the style of which is rigidly formal, is typical of the period_. But as this example demonstrates, substituting of _which_ may produce a stilted sentence.** ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2013, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-isnt-a-word/674085/36 "2013-11-18T13:01:53Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > Apparently, you can also use them if you are a grocer, and want to sell people _strawberrie’s_ or _apple’s_… Here in western NY we also use them to indicate the name of a business. People talk about shopping at Target’s or WalMart’s or eating at Burger King’s or Taco Bell’s. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2013, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-isnt-a-word/674085/37 "2013-11-18T15:22:03Z")
On the colloquial side: if I can understand what you mean, it’s a word. On the pedantic side: without the apostrophe, it’s only a word in the plural sense. As in, “thises and thats.” As long as you aren’t writing a research paper, it’s not a big deal. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2013, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-isnt-a-word/674085/38 "2013-11-18T15:29:29Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > Nope, more of a rule than an exception. Apostrophes are only involved with regular nouns. Apparently, you can also use them if you are a grocer, and want to sell people _strawberrie’s_ or _apple’s_… I’ve reported before on the Board of the wife and I strolling by the lake in Pokhara, Nepal one time. We passed one restaurant that had a chalkboard menu out front that proudly proclaimed: “Western breakfast’s.” And there was an ancient British lady, some schoolmarm sort, berating a waiter for the apostrophe in “breakfast’s.” He sheepishly erased it while she supervised. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-isnt-a-word/674085.md?page=1)