existential "it" |
Definition - Using it instead of there to show something's existence instead of its location. |
Example - Saying "It was nothing I could do" instead of "there was nothing I could do." |
Quotation - "Existential it is hardly a recent innovation — it appears in Middle English; in Elizabethan English, as in Marlowe's Edward II: “Cousin, it is no dealing with him now”; and in modern American literature as well." |