That that and other problems

[Chris Stolz]

Pynchon's narrator's use of "that" and "this here" is not only midwestern,
it's historically Germanic-- German and other post-anglo-saxon languages use
demonstratives in place of simpler articles a lot of the time.  Lots of
these folk settled late 19th C in the midwest (producing among other things
the accents of _Fargo_)
When Pynchon's narrator says "That Roosevelt made a big difference with that
New deal of his," this is a transposition of how one would say this in
German:  "Dieser Roosevelt hat mit diesem `New Deal' viel geaendert"
(roughly) where it is OK to use "dies" (this) instead of no article or "the"   
Chris Stolz      Internet:  chstolz at canuck.com
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Modern man likes to pretend that his thinking is wide-awake.  But 
this wide-awake thinking has led us into the mazes of a nightmare 
in which the torture chambers are endlessly repeated in the mirrors 
of reason.  When we emerge, perhaps we will realise we have been 
dreaming with our eyes open, and that the dreams of reason are intolerable.
And then, perhaps, we will begin to dream once more 
with our eyes closed.

			-- Octavio Paz, _The Labyrinth of Solitude_