LL-L "Grammar" 2009.02.24 (06) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 24 February 2009 - Volume 06
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From: Ben J. Bloomgren <ben.j.bloomgren at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2009.02.24 (04) [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.



I find similarities between "try and" and other expressions like "up and"
annd "go and". For "up and", I use it to mean that something/someone very
suddenly happened. My favorite radio station just up and got rid of Paul
Harvey while I was in Mexico. It was extremely sudden and, in my little
mind, traumatic. The "up and" part doesn't conjugate. The verb used
immediately afterward is what conjugates. For "go and", go does conjugate.
She went and slapped him after he scared her pet bird.



Ben


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From: Gary Taylor <gary_taylor_98 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Grammar
Re : Try and / Try to

Interesting, so it seems that 'try and' is considered more incorrect in
America than in England... I don't think I've ever been pulled up on saying
'try and' in the past as being wrong. As Heather says it is interesting that
'try and' can only be used when the verb is in the form 'try' - to add to
what was said, you can say 'I try and do it every week' but 'he tries and
do??? it every week' would be incorrect for my grammar. Where can the form
'try and' have come from? It certainly doesn't seem to make sense logically,
and I should imagine it's a fairly modern form, but could it have come from
another language - maybe Lowland? Where does Scots stand on this?

Gary

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