Ask LLOG: "What do you say (that) we …"
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This morning's question:
I'm an ESL textbook editor in Korea, and a grammar dispute has come down to one question: is "What do you say that we get together tonight?" grammatical, with "that" included (vs. the more common zero-complementizer "What do you say we…")?
My understanding is "that" is simply optional here, not ungrammatical.
FWIW, my reaction is that both versions are acceptable, but both versions are grammatically opaque reductions of something like "What do you say (to the idea that) we get together tonight?". And my intuition, again FWIW, is that most people would reduce the beginning to the pronunciation conventionally written as "whaddaya say".
As usual, there's some discussion of related issues on the web, like this exchange about "What do you mean (that) it's wrong?".
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language doesn't seem to have any discussion of "what do you say", but does consider simpler analogous cases like how come and how about (p. 909).
CGEL proposes that how come in How come the fridge is switched off ? "is best regarded as a compound interrogative word functioning as adjunct in a simple clause", derived by reduction and reanalysis from a source like "How does it come to be that the fridge is switched off?", noting that "it is impossible to insert that after come, a strong indication that the following NP (the fridge) has been reanalysed as subject of a main clause".
And CGEL suggests that how about in phrases like How about we leave the others until next week?, is an operator whose complement "can be an NP, a gerund-participial clause, or a tensed declarative clause", and whose "primary use is to put forward a suggestion". How about is presumably reduced and reanalyzed from a source like "How do you feel about the idea that we leave the others until next week?" — and the fact that about is preposition influences its wider range of uses, compared to how come.
What do you say has the same "put forward a suggestion" pragmatics as how about, but use with an NP requires to, as in What do you say to another drink?
These various word sequences are in plausibly in the middle of a historical process of reduction and reanalysis, so it's not surprising that they exhibit a variety of variable syntactic and phonological options. Myself, I agree with the judgment forbidding that in *How come that the fridge is switched off?, but I'm agnostic about that in What do you say (that) we get together tonight?.
COCA has 1111 examples of What do you say we, e.g.
What do you say we take this family reunion on the road?
What do you say we start some trouble?
what do you say we go get ourselves a new spaceship?
but only 5 examples of What do you say that we, e.g.
what do you say that we have dinner here together?
What do you say that we take a little breather?
what do you say that we quit our lousy jobs and go travel around the world?
So What do you say that is Out There, but apparently rare.
James said,
August 5, 2026 @ 7:43 am
For me, 'that' is forbidden in all three question forms: the "how about" and "how come" that CGEL discusses, and your Korean editor's "what do you say" construction.
To me it doesn't have the sound of "we were taught not to say that!", like stranded prepositions or the "Me and her are going to the dance together" discussed in yesterday's comments section. It has the "Oh, English is not your first language" sound — similar to my reaction when I heard my freshman roommate use positive polarity 'anymore' (the first time I'd ever heard it).
languagehat said,
August 5, 2026 @ 7:54 am
I agree with James.
Bob Ladd said,
August 5, 2026 @ 8:26 am
I agree with James and Language Hat.
Russell said,
August 5, 2026 @ 9:18 am
This is off topic, but too fun not to share.
I remember being at a park with my child when they were a toddler (perhaps 2 or 3 years old?) and saying to them: "What do you say we head home?" They responded
"Thank You." I was puzzled until I realized that I had spent a lot of time training them to say "Thank You" every time I said "What do you say?"
Stephen Goranson said,
August 5, 2026 @ 9:24 am
Even though I would prefer the that-less version, to me "forbidden" sounds too strong.
Jonathan Smith said,
August 5, 2026 @ 9:35 am
I agree with Stephen
VVOV said,
August 5, 2026 @ 11:01 am
American English speaker, mid 30s.
"What do you say that we get together tonight?" gets a marginal "?" judgment from me, not an ungrammatical "*".
It sounds like something people don't say, but not like something you CANNOT say.
I guess this is the same as Stephen's assessment.
J.W. Brewer said,
August 5, 2026 @ 11:22 am
In the Korean context of the question, I think that ESL textbooks would do well to warn their users away from constructions of borderline/disputed grammaticality (or idiomaticity, if you like) that "sound ESLish," which I agree this one does. Other books trying to map the outer boundaries of what possible sentences may sound tolerable to a material percentage of native speakers have a different goal and are free to adopt a different analysis.
Matt A said,
August 5, 2026 @ 11:33 am
When I see them written, all the forms with "what do you say that" look ungrammatical to me, but if I imagine them spoken aloud, they seem unremarkable, and I could even imagine saying them myself
Rick Rubenstein said,
August 5, 2026 @ 4:54 pm
In addition to (or rather instead of) "Whaddaya", I also often hear the reduction "what say", as in "What say we stop by the gelato place on the way home?" This feels newish, but that might well be Recency Illusion. ("What say" might also be UK-coded; I watch so much British content these days that my judgment of what's common here in the U.S. is clouding.)
Tim Leonard said,
August 5, 2026 @ 8:06 pm
For what it's worth, according to Google ngrams "what do you say" is hundreds of times more common than "what do you say that". Similarly, "what say" is hundreds of times more common than "what say that", and at least many of the latter are false positives like "What? Say that again?"
NSBK said,
August 5, 2026 @ 8:49 pm
Joining the chorus of "weird but not ungrammatical" for either version of "what do you say (that) NP VP".
My preferred version of this sentiment would be:
– "How about we get together tonight?"
If somehow I find myself having already uttered "What do you say…", I imagine I'd continue with "to" and end up with:
– "What do you say to us getting together tonight?"
CrawdadTom said,
August 5, 2026 @ 11:25 pm
I agree with J.W. Brewer.
Daniel Barkalow said,
August 6, 2026 @ 7:33 am
I think, for me, "What do you say that we get together tonight?" aloud is ungrammatical, but gets autocorrect rather than being marked wrong. I'd accept it without any reaction, but if I was asked to repeat what someone had said, I'd omit the "that" without feeling like I was paraphrasing.
TR said,
August 6, 2026 @ 11:50 am
I think CGEL is wrong that "it is impossible to insert that after come". There are lots of Google hits for how come that, even subtracting false positives like How come that idiot is rich and I'm not? Andrew Radford, in a chapter on how come which I haven't read, agrees (with examples).
Charles Antaki said,
August 6, 2026 @ 4:06 pm
Rick Rubenstein's comment about "what say" does indeed strike a UK English chord. But here it has a certain facetious feel to it, perhaps lowering the burden for a serious answer to a possibly risky proposal – "what say we nip off to the pub?", where this might be thought a bit delinquent. There's also an cod-archaic variant: "what say you", which I think could take a "to": "what say you to another drop of brandy?".
Robot Therapist said,
August 6, 2026 @ 4:16 pm
For me, "how come that…" is possible, but "what do you say that" absolutely not.
Chas Belov said,
August 7, 2026 @ 2:16 pm
As someone who finds himself adding "that" more than the norm, I'm perfectly fine with either version and puzzled that anyone would question it.
Chas Belov said,
August 7, 2026 @ 2:17 pm
That said (no pun intended), I probably wouldn't say "How come that…"
Philip Taylor said,
August 7, 2026 @ 3:48 pm
"As someone who finds himself adding "that" more than the norm …" — I too add "that" 'more than the norm' (I believe) but only in writing. I tend to write as I speak, then look back at what I have written and re-cast it as written prose rather than spoken, whereupon "that"s frequently appear mandated.
Tom said,
August 9, 2026 @ 3:03 am
Maybe they assumed Russell was offering to go home and them there alone.
Andrew Usher said,
August 9, 2026 @ 3:44 pm
Charles Antaki wrote:
That's a different construction as I see it – an ordinary subject inversion that's no longer part of standard English. Replace "what say you" with the modern form "what do you say" to see this.
The OP construction instead follows "what do you say" with a clause, a 'grammatically opaque construction' as he called it. Then one can argue about whether linking 'that' is possible; my intuition is that's it's wrong (for the same reason as with 'how come' and 'how about') but apparently this isn't universal, and no one's mentioned any usage advice about it – purely prescriptive advice would be just as good for this.
jaap said,
August 10, 2026 @ 6:48 am
I've always felt weird about a well-known song lyric where who/that was elided when to my ears it is not gramatically allowed. In the Beatles' In My Life there are the lines:
"But of all these friends and lovers / There is no one (*) compares with you"
My feeling is that "There is" forces the presence of that/who, but I'm no Lennon.
Tye S Power said,
August 10, 2026 @ 9:17 am
What is a clearer or just different way to express the same tone of indirect suggestion as "What do you say…"?