1

An American presenter said:

Bringing yourself into the now will help you most likely to realize that what it is that you are worrying about is not actually happening.

Can I change the sentence into something like

... realize that what you are worrying about is not actually happening.

If that so, why would the presenter put "it is that" in the sentence?

MarcInManhattan
  • 7,930
Elaung
  • 169
  • What don't you understand? vs What is it that you don't understand? I don't understand this point. vs It is this point that I don't understand. –  Jun 09 '16 at 14:32
  • The answer is simply "preference" I think. – Max Williams Jun 09 '16 at 14:33
  • Q1. Yes. Q2. You'll have to ask the presenter! (We don't do mind-reading here!) – TrevorD Jun 09 '16 at 16:25
  • 1
    I'm voting to close this question because mind-reading is off-topic! – TrevorD Jun 09 '16 at 16:27
  • Almost certainly because the speaker was extemporizing and not reading from a script. We don't always speak the most elegant and succinct way. – Stuart F Mar 06 '23 at 22:33

1 Answers1

0

The last part of this sentence ("that what it is that you are worrying about is not actually happening") has a lot going on: a cleft construction (with dummy subject "it"), adjacent "that" and "what" subordinators (with another "that" subordinator a few words later), two verbs in progressive aspect, and negation. Your fix gets rid of the cleft construction and makes the sentence much easier to read and understand. I would certainly prefer it over the original.

If that so, why would the presenter put "it is that" in the sentence?

Cleft constructions are often used to emphasize part of the sentence. In this case, the presenter emphasizes "that you are worrying about". I don't think that such emphasis outweighs the cost of the more complex sentence structure here, but to a certain extent it's a matter of preference.

MarcInManhattan
  • 7,930