I'm wondering about the phrase, “try and.” (Used like this: “I'm going to try and stop him.”)
I know that it's technically grammatically correct, but is it okay to say it? Would it be better to say, “I'm going to try TO stop him” instead?
Try and
January 1st, 2008 by Dredsina
55 Responses to “Try and”
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OK, I accept that ambiguity is not evidence of poor grammar. I also have to concede that without an "official" grammar, nothing in English could be termed correct or incorrect except by reference to usage and acceptance. "To try and" is certainly in common usage but it's clear there are many pedants, including myself, who are reluctant to let "to try to" go. Personally, being a grammar snob, I see "to try to" as superior to "to try and" (for some of the reasons already given by me and others) and I suppose that's all I can say.
Well and let me and say this: Ah don't know nothin' 'bout
nothin', Kirby! Now ain't that common usage? Here now and
let me and list a few "in-fin-ites" for ya: and try, and go,
and start, and type, and … etc.
Hey John and JJM,
Why be content with just screwing up infinitives in
sentence structure? Why not really DEVOLVE and take
up Wilson Kirby's eubolics?
Personally I’ve always thought of it as, “I will try and succeed in stopping him,” or “going to try and (will) stop him.”
Dropping the “will” possibly out of laziness has become the norm.
John was correct in his first posting. He cited Fowler. Merriam-Webster’s “Dictionary of English Usage” also finds support for the idiom from Evans (“A dictionary of American Usage”) and Follett (“Modern American Usage”). Garner (“A Dictionary of Modern American Usage”) calls ‘try and’ an American-English casualism for ‘try to’, though Merriam-Webster gives examples from Lewis Carroll and Charles Dickens, among others.
Whether casual or not, ‘try and’ is not incorrect. Merriam-Webster says this:
“The basis for objecting to ‘try and’ is usually the notion that ‘try’ is to be followed by the infinitive combined with the assumption that an infinitive requires ‘to’. This is the same mistaken assumption that has caused so much trouble over the so-called split infinitive. In spite of what these critics believe, however, infinitives are used in many constructions without ‘to’, and some of these constructions use ‘and’.”
The complete entry is lengthy, but worth reading. (The book is $20 well spent.)
Merriam-Webster closes with a quote from Fowler:
“It is an idiom that should not be discountenanced, but used when it comes natural.”
I’ll end with Jane Austin:
“Now I will try and write of something else.”