In the English Grammar Profile, B1 point 40 in the category of NOUNS is defined as:
the noun phrase ‘The thing’ in front position, with a clause complement, to give focus to something.
*This grammar point overlaps others at B1 and there is a slight overlap with B2.
A search in iWeb corpus for:
. The thing _P _V
1 . THE THING I LIKE 577
2 . THE THING I LOVE 397
3 . THE THING I DO 210
4 . THE THING YOU HAVE 133
5 . THE THING YOU NEED 130
6 . THE THING I’M 128
7 . THE THING I LIKED 124
8 . THE THING I AM 102
9 . THE THING I WAS 98
10 . THE THING I HAVE 97
11 . THE THING I FIND 94
12 . THE THING I REMEMBER 86
13 . THE THING I DID 78
14 . THE THING I FOUND 77
15 . THE THING I’VE 71
16 . THE THING I WANT 57
17 . THE THING I HATE 56
PELIC STUDENT EXAMPLE:
The thing I hate most in Korea is that people eat frogs and insects.
Arabic Male Level 5 Grammar Class.
18 . THE THING I WOULD 54
19 . THE THING YOU WANT 47
20 . THE THING YOU SHOULD 45
21 . THE THING I NOTICED 44
22 . THE THING I THINK 43
23 . THE THING I LOVED 42
24 . THE THING I MISS 40
25 . THE THING I ENJOY 37
26 . THE THING YOU ARE 29
27 . THE THING YOU DO 27
28 . THE THING WE LOVE 24
29 . THE THING THEY HAVE 24
30 . THE THING I NOTICE 23
31 . THE THING I HAD 23
32 . THE THING WE DO 23
33 . THE THING YOU MUST 23
34 . THE THING YOU WILL 22
35 . THE THING WE NEED 22
36 . THE THING WE LIKE 22
37 . THE THING I DISLIKE 22
38 . THE THING I CA 21
39 . THE THING WE HAVE 21
40 . THE THING YOU ‘RE 21
41 . THE THING YOU CAN 20
42 . THE THING WE ‘RE 20
43 . THE THING I ‘D 20
44 . THE THING I LEARNED 19
45 . THE THING I WANTED 19
46 . THE THING ITSELF IS 17
47 . THE THING I WORRY 17
48 . THE THING I SEE 15
49 . THE THING WE ARE 15
50 . THE THING WE MUST 15
A2:
hate, itself, must, notice, should
B1:
dislike, noticed
There are complex points that should be included with this grammar point. For example:
One of the things I should probably tell you is I worked for the Discovery Channel early in my career, and that sort of warped my framework.
The thing that scares people is our technology.