this and that

It doesn't sound like the first "this" is referring to Kevin's thoughts. "This, this and that" is an expression roughly meaning "miscellaneous or random information." It's a lot like saying "x, y and z," if you're familiar with that idiom: "...in the world cup format, they'll ask for x, y and z." It's also equivalent to the phrase "such and such": "...in the world cup format, they'll ask for such and such." You have to think of the first "this" as referring to Random Item #1, the second "this" as Random Item #2 and "that" as Random Item #3.

By the way, I don't know if the passage you quoted is a direct quote from something, but it's grammatically incorrect. "Kevin Pritchard if he's not in first place he's pissed" is a run-on sentence. There should be commas seperating "if he's not in first place," and "he's" is a superfluous subject because "Kevin Pritchard" is already functioning as the subject.

Shapeless wrote:

yes, i know. it comes from a very fast typed script but i didn't correct it because it really doesn't matter for the understanding.

so, i still don't understand the presence of "this and that" here.

Kevin always wants to win and he's going to be good in that world competition because it's a very demanding format?

or is there absolutely no relation between Kevin always wanting to win and the competition being demanding?

gosh, i'm a little lost:s

If there is a relation, it's not implied by that sentence alone. We would need more of the quotation before we could say for sure.



Again, "this, this and that" is an idiom. Part of the confusion may be that you're separating the phrase "this, this and that" into two parts: this + this and that. I can see how it would be tempting to do this... the comma seems to suggest that it should be read this way. And when you read it that way, then it does indeed seem as if the word "this" is being repeated needlessly.

But that's not really what's going on. You have to think of the phrase not as a combination of two terms seperated by a comma, but as three terms: this + this + that. As you probably know, when you're listing items in English it is common to separate them by a comma except for the last two items: "corn, rice, peas and carrots" or "monkeys, lions, tigers and bears." That's what's happening in the expression "this, this and that." Imagine three apples in front of you. Someone asks you what you're going to eat for lunch. You, say: "I'm going to eat this [you point to Apple #1], this [you point to Apple #2] and that [you point to Apple #3]."

Are you familiar with the expression "x, y and z"? It means exactly the same thing as the expression "this, this and that." The first "this" = x, the second "this" = y, and "that" = z.

I'm not really familiar with that expression either, sorry. I sort of understand what it means though.

it may be the "because" word that misleads me. so what does the sentence mean actually?

let me quote a bit more :

Kevin Pritchard if he's not in first place he's pissed, so I mean he's a great contest sailor because in the world cup format they'll ask for this, this and that. And this format's much more open to free, freedom of expression and style. And they said that Kevin isnt so stylish, but I think he still has the capability to win in these kind of conditions and in this kind of format, so he's a force to be reckoned with and he's gonna be still focussed to win.

i guess that in the world cup, judges are quite demanding on what riders need to do and in the format they're actually going to take part in, the feel is a bit more on the smooth side. and kevin, quite picky on what he does, may not be the right person to win this contest that relies more on style than pure "robotic trick making" still, the narrator thinks otherwise.

You're right, the "because" is misleading. It's implying a relation between the demands of the contest and Kevin's abilities but it's not telling us what the relation is. The word "so" is even more misleading, in my opinion, because it implies a relation between Kevin's competitiveness and the nature of the competition, and I'm not sure the author of these words is trying to convey any such relation at all. The passage is written in the language of casually spoken English, and in casually spoken English the word "so" is often used just to fill in space... sort of like "um": "I'm going to the store to buy some milk and, um, eggs." It looks like that's what the author had in mind.

nice explanation, thanks a lot:)