"I like it that" vs. "I like that"

Question

I want to express the following: You are blaming me for your lack of concern and I like that (in a sarcastic way).

Which one of the following sentences would be correct?

I like it that your lack of concern is my fault.

I like that your lack of concern is my fault.

The sarcastic idiom is confined to 'I like that!' Thus: "Your lack of concern is my fault?! I like that!" — Edwin Ashworth, Nov 01 '13 at 20:15
The grammatical question is whether the superfluous dummy it is required, or whether like can just take a tensed complement without extraposition. Either one's OK with me, but opinions vary on the second one. — John Lawler, Nov 01 '13 at 21:46
But the answer to OP's question is 'Neither' - they may be grammatically correct, but would rarely if ever be used to convey the sarcastic sense. — Edwin Ashworth, Nov 02 '13 at 12:01
When I'm reading the sentences, the manner of saying those sentences tells me if it's sarcastic or not. :P — Lester Nubla, Nov 04 '13 at 06:56
Hesitatingly, may I suggest the following: "So your lack of concern is my fault, is it? That's very good/clever/intelligent." I agree with @EdwinAshworth that "I like that" sounds better at the end, and the "art" of sarcasm usually involves heavily stressing the key word and leaving the cutting comment at the end. — Mari-Lou A, Nov 15 '13 at 07:14
In the sarcastic usage, I would say, “I like how your lack of concern is somehow my fault”. — Janus Bahs Jacquet, Mar 12 '14 at 22:55

score 3 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 15 '20 at 07:40

Both are correct, and both convey the same information. The only difference is in the syntax: the grammatical way in which you are conveying your point. Let us look at the first example:

I like it that your lack of concern is my fault.

The word that has many uses in English. In this example, that is the relative pronoun, and refers back to it so as to give more information.

What do you like? You like it. However, the listener knows nothing about what it is, and so you add a relative clause, beginning with that, which gives more information about it. Similar constructions include the following:

This is the house that I want.

Here is the man that I was talking about.

The only good thing that happened last night was...

As for your second example:

I like that your lack of concern is my fault.

That is a type of subordinating conjunction, called a complimentizer. Unsurprisingly, it takes the second clause and makes it the complement of the first clause. Because of the complimentizer that, the whole phrase your lack of concern is my fault becomes the object of the verb like. Similar constructions are as follow:

I said that I wanted to.

He hopes that his brother will come home to see him.

The king commands that his fool attend the court.

As you can see, both constructions occur frequently in English and neither is inherently better than the other. If I am to make a recommendation, however, the it in the first example feels superfluous; it doesn't contain anything necessary in and of itself. As always with style, the choice is ultimately yours.

243 · Answer 2 · 2013-11-15T06:18:07.147

2

I like it that your lack of concern is my fault.

This one is correct. Generally, you do not say "I like that-clause".

http://framenet2.icsi.berkeley.edu/frameSQL/book/5_Assigning_Grammatical_Functions.html I quote a part related below.

For example, the verb like can occur in sentences with extraposed objects:

(3) I like it [that you speak French].

FrameNet annotations of example sentences demonstrate that the verb like may take a null object it followed by a complement clause as one of its valence options. It is possible to retrieve examples of extraposed objects for like and other predicates from the database by searching for combinations of null object and complement clause.

edited Nov 15 '13 at 06:18

answered Nov 11 '13 at 12:10

243

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Wouldn't "that you speak French" be a noun clause, and so the sentence would be "I like [noun]," which is certainly correct? – wchargin Dec 15 '13 at 21:22
Thank you for the comment. Theoretically, you are right. "I like that-clause" might be acceptable but informal. – 243 Dec 16 '13 at 05:49
@WChargin What makes you think that you speak French is a noun clause? It doesn't pattern with noun clauses generally. I think that the correct answer here is that like is undergoing a meaning-shift in English, and many speakers (including myself) find it fully acceptable, if informal, with a that-clause complement. – P Elliott Jan 14 '14 at 19:21
These sites (DeAnza college, University of Pittsburgh, Portland Community College) are the top three Google results for noun clause with that site:edu and all demonstrate the same structure. Wikipedia agrees, as does Dictionary.com. It's simply the definition. What do you think a noun clause is? – wchargin Jan 14 '14 at 23:34

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 12 '14 at 20:31

In spoken English, there really is no difference between the two. They are equally acceptable. I rarely hear the "I like it that" form, as people tend to eliminate any unnecessary sounds and words when speaking.

If you're being sarcastic (which you certainly are with a sentence constructed the way yours is), then I would omit "it". In fact, I can't think of a good reason ever to include it. It sounds a little stuffy.

"I like it that" vs. "I like that"

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