GYG Day 49. The inside story of “to” in three lists and a splendid story.

Here are your next “to” learn lists, pun intended! Yes, some verbs end with the gerund (verb + –ing) form (yesterday’s post), others have “to” + the infinitive verb aka main verb form (e.g. sit). Still, others can have both depending on the usage!!! That’ll really be fun (Dave’s British humour shines through again), so I’ll leave it to the ‘Fun on Friday’ post.

Back to “to”. The inside story is that there are three lists to learn. Since your brain is still alive, let’s look at the longest and the easiest to get your heads around.

afford’, ‘appear’, ‘arrange’, ‘decide’, ‘fail’, ‘forget’, ‘happen’, ‘hope’, ‘intend’, ‘learn’, ‘manage’, ‘mean’, ‘offer’, ‘plan’, ‘prepare’, ‘promise’, ‘refuse’, ‘seem’, ‘threaten’.

Keeping in fashion with the three theme, here are three stupid phrases to help you remember the pattern.

Dave forgot to send* a birthday card to the Queen.

The Queen arranged to have* Dave hung, drawn and quartered in the Tower of London.

Dave managed to escape* by jumping onto a getaway helicopter a la James Bond 007 from the rooftop of the Tower. *(infinitive form).

Complicating matters further, did you know that some verbs take a direct object (DO) + “to” infinitive? Let me explain with two more silly sentences.

The Queen invited me** to visit Bucks Palace for a cuppa tea & scones.

I’ll teach you** to mess with me, Mrs Queeny. (**The ‘me’ & ‘you’ are direct objects).

Here’s the list: ‘advise’, ‘allow’, ‘encourage’, ‘force’, ‘invite’, ‘order’, ‘persuade’, ‘remind’, ‘teach’, ‘tell’, ‘warn’.

Last but not least, my final over-the-top example to show the pattern. But which one?

I’ll make Mrs Queeny (her)** sing “God shave the Queen” at the top of her voice.

The following verbs ‘feel’, ‘hear’, ‘see’, ‘let’, ‘make’ take a DO + infinitive but WITHOUT “TO”.

Three little rules and a splendid story to get you through your Thursday. Have a great day.

pun intended (Wortspiel beabsichtigt), to get one’s head around sth (etw verstehen), hung, drawn and quartered (gehängt, gestreckt, gevierteilt), getaway (Flucht), cuppa (cup of), scones (Teegebäck), to mess with sb (sich mit jdm anlegen), over-the-top (OTT) (übertieben), at the top of one’s voice (mit lauter Stimme)

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2 Gedanken zu „GYG Day 49. The inside story of “to” in three lists and a splendid story.

  1. Jenny Antworten

    Perfect! Gerund or not, that‘s what always causes me headaches! I‘m gonna print yesterday‘s and today‘s GYG on a DIN A1 page and pin it on the wall. Thank you for explaining this topic in a way that leaves no questions unanswered. 🙂

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