Talk:despite that

Tea room convo

Wiktionary:Tea room/2018/January § despite that + subordinate clause? Per utramque cavernam 11:17, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Removed wishful thinking regarding proscribedness

This is a completely ordinary construction. The word "that" has precedent as a conjunction(?) that allows a subordinate verb clause to act as the complement of a preposition, as in the just-as-completely-ordinary constructions in that and given that — neither of which has a "proscribed" label, and both of which this entry's usage notes formerly linked to while trying to maintain, somehow, that "despite that" is proscribed or proscribable! Moreover, the TR discussion linked above established pretty solidly that no one else has heard of "despite that" being proscribed, either, and that this entry's former insistence on its proscription was probably nothing more than wishful thinking in an attempt to compare it to the French equivalent that is indeed proscribed in French. However, we here at Wiktionary would do well to remember that English is not French. —M. I. Wright (talk, contribs) 08:02, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

@M. I. Wright: Maybe it sounds all right to you, but it doesn't to all speakers; please reread Andrew Sheedy's comment ("You can't say "despite that."") in the above-mentioned thread. Also, see this: you'll see that "Despite that John left..." is clearly marked with an asterisk, indicating ungrammaticality; or this: "Despite that now rarely serves as a conjunction in British English, the prepositional constructions despite the fact that or in spite of the fact that being usually...".

I know I'm not a native speaker, but I think I've developed a pretty good feel for English syntax, and "despite that" simply sounds wrong, in a way that given that or in that do not. Canonicalization (talk) 09:23, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

@Canonicalization: It is all not convincing. We have in German the same construction, trotzdem dass, which long (being a topic in the Imperial era) has become the conjunction trotzdem, used interchangeably with obwohl, obgleich and so on and is held to be regional; it has even been plotted after two surveys in the Atlas der deutschen Alltagssprache. One also hears trotz dass. Plotting English is harder of course, but you would find that is just about accustomedness, in any case the usage note did not really explain what’s the matter. Fay Freak (talk) 13:49, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm with Fay Freak here regarding accustomedness — real usage examples always trump presumptions to the contrary. Even if they didn't, though, a scattering of descriptive indications that such-and-such term might be ungrammatical doesn't amount to proscription. —M. I. Wright (talk, contribs) 23:08, 21 December 2019 (UTC)