How many thats can you put together?
My dad and I did this once. We tried to see how many thats we could string together in an unbroken chain and still have a sentence that made sense.
Our record was 5.
The teacher said that that that that that boy used was wrong.
It makes perfect sense to me. Does it to you? Can you get even more thats together? (It has to make sense and be grammatically correct).
11 Answers
More commonly you'll see two thats. One is being used as a conjuction (Spanish uses que) and the second is being used as an adjective or occasionally as a pronoun (Spanish would use eso/a in both cases).
She said that that boy was sick. (Ella dice que eso niño estaba enfermo.)
Then there is the pluperfect or past perfect of "to have," which is "had had."
I had had breakfast already. (Yo ya había tenido desayuno.)
I can get three hads in a row. (Picture the word "had" written on a chalkboard, with a line drawn through it).
That had had had a line drawn through it.
I can get 11 "had"'s .....
Smith, where Jones had had "had had", had had "had". "Had had" had had the teacher's approval.
Beat That!!!! 
perfectly clear, web, wonderful example, jeje
Could not be possible in Spanish.
The boss said to the new labourer go and get a shovel off donkey over there so he went for the shovel and then asked, why did he call you donkey? I i i don't know he haw he haw he haw he he always calls me that.
La maestra dice que ese eso que ese niño usaba era incorrecto.
I have a question regarding this sentence. Since the use of that that is a single action completed in the past, why isn't usar in the preterite tense? Is it because it set the scene for the teacher's correction, and if so why isn't that in the preterite?
Fascinating, webdunce! I love linguistic puzzles like this.
It made me wonder if there was anything on the www and I actually found two wiki articles that mentions this style of "lexical ambiguity."
Here's the example (and link) I found in wiki that uses 'that':
That that is is that that is not is not is that it it is
This apparently is four distinct sentences that lack punctuation. However I don't think this example is as good as the one you have. (Maybe you should contribute the sentence you and your dad came up with! 
)
Sheila said: Smith, where Jones had had "had had", had had "had". "Had had" had had the teacher's approval.
Issabela said: whoa..! I feel dizzy
If that is true then this example might just push you over the edge into nausea! 
James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher
Thanks for starting such an interesting post! 
The teacher said that that that that that boy used was wrong.
Replace the bold that with "that that that that that" and it would be a correct sentence about a teacher correcting an incorrect use of "that that that that that" by a student. Now that we have a correct sentence with 8 thats, we can add 4 more in the same manner. This process can be iterated to produce a sentence with an arbitrarily large number of thats in a row.
La maestra dice que ese eso que ese niño usaba era incorrecto.
I had said:
La maestra dice que esa eso que eso niño usó estaba incorrecto.
.
Heidita corrected me:
La maestra dice que ese eso que ese niño usaba era incorrecto.
.
So, actually, I am the boy who used that incorrectly, and Heidita is the teacher who said so.
Could it get any more ironic than that?
The teacher said that that that that that boy used was wrong.
In Spanish, I think that would be:
La maestra dice que esa eso que eso niño usó estaba incorrecto.
No, I can get four hads...
(Picture the word had on a chalkboard, another had had been drawn next to it and now is erased)
That had had had had drawn next to it.
