Written by Leonard R. Jaffee   

Copyright © 2014
Leonard R. Jaffee
Professor of Law Emeritus
all rights reserved


Kayak down my stream of consciousness, far into a rapids of mind, and tumble up a mental carny-ride that spins into the film "Mars Attacks!" — a copy of which has been added to the contents of another spaceship carrying mementos of human civilization to alien life-forms that may snare the vessel & find it curious enough to merit curiosity, mementos like a cloned sheep, the wardrobe the McCain campaign & the RNC bought for Sarah Palin (& a copy of Palin's Form 1040 Schedules A & C claiming tax deduction for the wardrobe's being stowed in the rocket's cone), and the original, signed-with-dung manuscript of Hitler's Mein Kampf.

"Mars Attacks!" is a high Olympian didactic opus that sports Titanic actors of our time — angelic men & women (Jack Nicholson, Sarah Jessica Parker, Danny DiVito, Glenn Close, Pierce Brosnan, Martin Short...) who would not entertain abetting hoaxes, or even a farce. And in that sainted work (a semi-documented quasi docu-drama), the Martians speak a language having just one pseudo-word: "ack."

Martians form syntax by altering pitch, tone-direction, repetition-speed, cluster-configuration, decibel-level, and other such (as if using a very "refined" transmutation of Morse Code). A Martian sentence may be: "ACK-ack; ACK-ack-ack-ACK; ack-ACK-ack; ACK; ACK-ack." Consider, for edifying comparison, the following very proper English sentence, which vies courageously with any of Martian speech — courageously as the language of GW Bush, our previous Glorious Leader who addressed an assembly of rapturing extremist Texas Christians & (likely still wearing the uniform he wore when he stood on an aircraft carrier & said "mission accomplished") summoned the cause of human embryos & assured the audience: "Even feces have rights. Even feces deserve to live."

Oh! Wait! Just then, in a speed-of-light millisecond, I mused through tens of Martian sentences my memory contrived & apprehended I left a "had" dangling (a caveman condemned) beyond a set of hads of the delicious sentence I design to present. My almost-failing followed my not attending rhythm compulsively enough. By revisiting Martian syntax, I re-apprehended the meanings of metronomes that are (as WC Fields said of children & John Cage said of pianos) properly prepared — in the metronome case, inventively deranged. Below, now, appears that consummate English-language sentence completely well-incompleted — & even pumped up half to Schwarzenegger proportions.

Please forgive the sentence's inelegance of using not just one, but two words ("that" & "had"). Alas, unlike Martian, English needs both nominatives AND verbs (while Martian needs neither, but only ack-beat). Yet the sentence bears the virtue of being not mere code, but a good, Yorkshire-pudding-hardy English-language syntax (laudable because a sentence of the tongue of Englishmen, who "never never never shall be slaves," even if they don't still "rule the waves," since they're smarter than rest, as proven by their accents, the best). [Oh, notice: "never never never" equals "never" (since the third "never" cancels the second's canceling the first & the first "never" cancels the second's cancelling the third).]

THE SENTENCE:

"That that that that that had had, had had that that that had that that that had that, that that that had had that that."

SAME SENTENCE PARSED:

"THAT [demonstrative determiner] THAT [noun] THAT [restrictive relative pronoun] THAT [demonstrative determiner] THAT [noun] HAD [auxiliary verb creating plu-perfection] HAD [past tense turned plu perfect because of preceding auxiliary verb "had"], HAD [auxiliary verb creating plu-perfection] HAD [past tense turned plu perfect because of preceding auxiliary verb "had"] THAT [demonstrative determiner] THAT [noun] THAT [restrictive relative pronoun] HAD [simple past] THAT [demonstrative determiner] THAT [noun] THAT [restrictive relative pronoun] HAD [simple past] THAT [demonstrative pronoun (ellipsis of "that X ")], THAT [subjunctive subordinating conjunction] THAT [demonstrative determiner] THAT [noun] HAD [subjunctive because of the "that" that begins this dependent clause] HAD [a rare creature, a plu perfect subjunctive, that occurs because of the immediately preceding auxiliary "had"] THAT [demonstrative determiner] THAT [noun]."

I (or someone not no one) could have strung more thats & hads into that simple compound complexity — a conditional clause, perhaps, like "HAD [auxiliary verb] THAT [demonstrative determiner] THAT [noun] HAD [plu perfect of "to have"] THAT [demonstrative determiner] HAD [noun] THAT [restrictive relative pronoun] HAD [auxiliary verb] HAD [plu perfect] THAT [demonstrative determiner] THAT [noun]..." (etc.).

I shall resist the joy of enhancing that sentence to infinite infinities stretched beyond all beyonds. For, being merciful as humble — humbly merciful? mercifully humble? — I'll deprive you of more sumptuous torture (pointlessly pointed permutative pains), but tender more colorful prose:

Triple rainbows.
Meteors raining.
A billionaire's auto da fé.