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A 105 year old lady is telling about her feelings. She says:

I mean I have lived here 105 years. Not many can say that is there. No. 105 year.

BBC- elderly lived in the same house for 105 years (see:2:40-2:47)

I checked the subtitles. If not wrong, this is what she said. And I couldn't quite understand what she meant by ".....Not many can say that is there....". As a non-native speaker, it made me think of 2 meanings: Does she mean;

  1. I have lived quite a long life. Not many people can reach such a long lifetime of 105 years.

OR

  1. I don't look my age. Not many people can say there are actually 105 years on my face.

Thanks.

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  • In modern parlance innit. People often do not speak grammatically. Neither of your suggested meanings is relevant (although she may also have said that). The quote is about how long she has lived in that house.
    – Weather Vane
    Commented Aug 13 at 21:59

1 Answer 1

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It's a tag question with some omissions. The subtitles even have a question mark.

(There are) Not many (that) can say that, is there?

I.e. there are not many people that can say that they lived 105 years (in the same place no less).

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  • 6
    Noting that 'is there' is dialect for 'are there'.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Aug 13 at 21:55
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    Now it makes sense. Then subtitles are not quite right, which actually caused the confusion.
    – Yunus
    Commented Aug 13 at 22:12
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    By omissions I mean words omitted by the speaker, not that the subtitles incorrectly omitted them.
    – ishtar
    Commented Aug 13 at 22:34
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    Yes, the subtitles accurately reflect what she says there. But the words are not really "omitted" in the sense that they were necessary. "there are" is for chumps, after all.
    – TimR
    Commented Aug 14 at 0:05
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    @TimR - she reminds me of my aunt's friend's father, who I met when I was 15 when my aunt and I went to tea at their house. He turned to me and said 'What's your name? I'm ninety, you know!'. I told him and we got on with the cold ham and salad. Ten minutes passed and he turned to me and said 'What's your name? I'm ninety, you know!'.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Aug 14 at 7:00

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