Why You Need the Word “that”

“The tone [of the speech]–too ruminative for a country club ballroom and the sort of good time people were looking for there–didn’t seem at all ill conceived between three and six A.M., as I tried, in my overstimulated state to comprehend the union underlying the reunion, the common experience that had joined us as kids.” 

 

American Pastoral, Philip Roth

 

His trouble occurs here: “a country club ballroom and the sort of good time people were looking for there…” If only for the briefest moment, we may read that the people are “good time people,” not that people were looking for a good time. A competent editor should have found this easy to fix: “a country club ballroom and the sort of good time that people were looking for there…”