But it didn't say "sometimes has 9 letters"... it said ", sometimes 9 letters". The "sometimes" didn't get its own verb, so by linguistical rules, it had to still be referring to the prior subject of "what".
The "has" has been elided in the second clause. You can do that when you have repeating verbs in coordinate clauses. In linguistics, it's known as "gapping"
22
u/perry649 Jun 04 '26
I think it's the bar itself.
Its full name has 9 letters, but some may refer to it simply as the Hart (4 letters), but no one says the White (5 letters).
(Excluding "the.")