From: mike@xenocyte.com   
      
   Michelle Bottorff  wrote:   
   > Sometimes when I am speaking the construction "try to [verb]" I drop the   
   > "to" out of it.  It's a matter of cadence and emphasis and stuff.   
   >   
   > "Are you okay?  Is the hill too much for you?  Do you need to rest?"   
   > "I want to try make it to the next bench -- I'll rest there."   
   >   
   > or   
   >   
   > "Don't you dare try touch me you scumbag!"   
   >   
   > etc.   
   >   
   >   
   > I think this is a normal thingy that lots of English speakers do   
   > (probably without even noticing that they are doing it).  My "ear"   
   > doesn't have it assigned to any particular dialect, and I have been   
   > using it pretty generally in my writing.  Of all the "try to [verb]"   
   > constructions in Serendipity's Tide, maybe 20% ended up missing the   
   > "to", because I deliberately left it out.   
   >   
   > But my husband has suddenly decided to object to this "to"-less   
   > construction in my text even though he agrees that a colloquial, casual   
   > useage is right for the narrative voice.  He says I'm the only one in   
   > the world who does that, (or maybe it's a regionalism for southern   
   > Alberta where I grew up) and that it "just sounds wrong", and that my   
   > readers will see it as an error.  He says I should "fix" those passages.   
   >   
   > But to me the "fix" sounds wrong for the tone of voice and cadence and   
   > so forth.  That's not what the voice in my head said!   
   >   
   > (It was just an example, but if you think about it, nobody would ever   
   > manage to shout "Don't you dare to try to touch me, you scumbag!" while   
   > seriously upset. They'd just end up tripping all over their tongue.)   
   >   
   > I told him I've been doing this all along and he never even seemed to   
   > notice until it was coincidentally called to his attention -- so I'm   
   > having trouble accepting this whole "just sounding wrong" thingy.  He's   
   > edited how many of my books already?  Six?  Seven?  If it sounds so   
   > wrong as all that, why has he not marked even one of these for   
   > correction?   
   >   
   > He responded that he misses things like that when he reads, but that if   
   > someone *said* it to him he would notice and think it sounded strange.   
   >   
   > Almost immediately I proved that claim to be wrong, by pretending to   
   > attempt to end the editing session: I sighed wearily, frowned at the   
   > manuscript, and said "Maybe we shoudn't try get all this done tonight."   
   >   
   > In spite of the fact that we hadn't even changed subject to something   
   > else in the meantime, and that he had only a short time before declaimed   
   > that he would notice someone saying such a thing, my use of the   
   > contested construction sailed right past him.   
   >   
   > When I pointed out to him what he had missed, he responded by saying   
   > that it didn't count because he's lived with me for twenty-five years,   
   > and my readers haven't.   
   >   
   > So, er...   
   >   
   > Is this really a idiolect thingy unique to me (or possibly a   
   > regionalism), that will cause almost every reader I might have to go   
   > "Mistake!"?   
   >   
   > Or am I right that "people" really do talk like that, and that it will   
   > therefore slide past all but the grammatically obsessed as a completely   
   > normal thing to have said?   
   >   
   >   
   >   
   >   
      
   I've never heard that done in England. It would always strike me as odd   
   when reading and I'd assume it was a typesetting error that had slipped   
   through copy editing. If it recurred I'd assume you were deliberately   
   creating a new idiolect.   
      
   --   
   "In 900 years of time and space, I've never met anyone who wasn't   
   important."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)