LL-L "Grammar" 2009.02.24 (04) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 24 February 2009 - Volume 02
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From: Brooks, Mark <mark.brooks at twc.state.tx.us>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2009.02.24 (01) [E]

Gary asked about “try to” and “try and.”



Yes, I hear it quite a bit.  When I get pedantic, I find “try and” annoying,
because it doesn’t make much sense.  If someone says “I’ll try and fix that
for you” to me it has a compound verb phrase that would literally mean “I’ll
try and I’ll fix that for you.”  To me the verb “try” semantically calls for
“to” before it can mean anything.  So, saying “I’ll try to fix that for you”
would sound better to me.  However, I admit that when someone says “try and”
I know what they mean.


Mark Brooks


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From: Kevin & Cheryl Caldwell <kevin.caldwell1963 at verizon.net>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2009.02.24 (01) [E]

“Try and” always annoys me.  It seems like the speaker is assuming success.
“Try to” just makes more sense to me.



Kevin Caldwell

Laurel, Maryland, USA


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From: heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk <heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2009.02.24 (01) [E]

from Heather Rendall  heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk



Gary was asking about "try to" and "try and"



I do love interesting questions that jolt you out of the complacency
youoften has about your own mother tongue and make you look closely at
something you normally take for granted.


You are quite right that although these can be alternatives e.g. I'm going
to try to explain / I'm going to try and explain: I always try to explain it
simply/ I always try and explain it simply but not all the time!  You can't
say  *" I'm trying and explain it as simply as I can" but you can say " I'm
trying to explain it as simply as I can". Nor can you get away with " I
tried and explained it to him" whereas " I tried to explain it to him" is
OK.



Can anyone explain why? What is happening here? Is it just usage? Or is
something very clever occuring deeply here?



Heather



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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language diversity

Good point, Heather.

I assume that two or more progressive-tense verbs (-ing) are taken as
indicating simultaneous action; e.g.

He’s sitting (and/while) watching the game.

As opposed to …

*He’s trying and watching the game.

Well, it’s not *really* ungrammatical within certain contexts; e.g.

- Do you think he can fix my watch?
- He’s trying and/while watching the game as we speak.

On the other hand, “try and …” may be analyzed as consecutive actions (“try
and then succeed to …”).

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

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