[Ads-l] try and...

[George Thompson]

or write "to try but fail"

I always try to say "try to" rather than "try and".  But "try and" is the
optimistic phrase: I will try, and I will succeed; "try to" is perhaps
defeatist: I will try, but I may fail.  Defeatist, but realistic.

GAT

On Mon, Jun 25, 2018 at 3:16 PM, David Daniel <dad at coarsecourses.com> wrote:

> From CNN: "Rhode Island has become the latest state to try and fail to pass
> legislation that would put pressure on President Donald Trump to release
> his
> tax returns ahead of the 2020 presidential election." I think I would have
> put in some commas - to try, and fail, to pass - or parentheses or dashes
> or
> something, given that half the world or more says "try and" instead of "try
> to."
> DAD
>
>
>
> ---
> Este email foi escaneado pelo Avast antivírus.
> https://www.avast.com/antivirus
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
George A. Thompson
The Guy Who Still Looks Stuff Up in Books.
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998.

But when aroused at the Trump of Doom / Ye shall start, bold kings, from
your lowly tomb. . .
L. H. Sigourney, "Burial of Mazeen", Poems.  Boston, 1827, p. 112

The Trump of Doom -- also known as The Dunghill Toadstool.  (Here's a
picture of his great-grandfather.)
http://www.parliament.uk/worksofart/artwork/james-gillray/an-excrescence---a-fungus-alias-a-toadstool-upon-a-dunghill/3851

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org