Grammar advice: infinitive in US English?

Subject: Grammar advice: infinitive in US English?
From: "Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 08:32:24 -0400


Elizabeth OShea whether the following sentence is <<... correct in US
English: 'To enable people subscribe to your company's mailing list...'>>

Nope. Here, you need the full infinitive: 'To enable people to subscribe...'

<<I have consulted Warriners, Little, Brown, and CUP's Advanced Grammar in
Use. All these sources give examples of when the bare infinitive can be used
(subscribe is the bare infinitive in this example)>>

Personally, I'd just say "to let someone do something", since "to enable to"
is twice as long, introduces a double "to", and offers no real advantage in
most cases. I'm not aware of any good rule for when the bare infinitive is
acceptable, other than to note that some verbs always seem to take the form
"to verb to" (as is the case for enable). Moreover, some examples seem to be
largely idiomatic and thus simply require a good "ear" for English. However:

<<Lastly, does anyone know of a list dedicated to grammar questions?>>

That would be copyediting-l, which I've mentioned several times on techwr-l.
For details about the list: http://ce-l.blinn.com/celfaq/
To subscribe: http://listserv.indiana.edu/archives/copyediting-l.html

--Geoff Hart, geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada
"User's advocate" online monthly at
www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/usersadvocate.html
"When ideas fail, words come in very handy."--Goethe


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Save $600: Create great-looking Help files and software demos with
RoboHelp Deluxe. Get RoboHelp and RoboDemo - our new demo software - for one
low price. OR Save $100 on RoboHelp Office in June with our mail-in rebate.
Go to http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l

Your monthly sponsorship message here reaches more than
5000 technical writers, providing 2,500,000+ monthly impressions.
Contact Eric (ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com) for details and availability.

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.


Previous by Author: Technical writer / instructional designer?
Next by Author: Any printing experts?
Previous by Thread: Re: Dave Barry column on why people don't read manuals - how to make them read manuals...
Next by Thread: Any printing experts?


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads