Prev | Current Page 160 | Next

Bechtel, John Hendricks, 1841-

"Slips of Speech : a Helpful Book for Everyone Who Aspires to Correct the Everyday Errors of Speaking"

"
The active verbs bid, dare, feel, hear, let, make, need, see, and
their participles, usually take the infinitive after them, without the
preposition to. Such expressions, as "He bade me to depart," "I dare
to say he is a villain," "I had difficulty in making him to see his
error," are, therefore, wrong, and are corrected by omitting to.
_________________________________________________________________
168
Incomplete Infinitive
Such incomplete expressions as the following are very common: "He has
not gone to Europe, nor is he likely to." "She has not written her
essay, nor does she intend to." "Can a man arrive at excellence who
has no desire to?" The addition of the word go to the first sentence,
and of write it, to the second would make them complete. In the case
of the third sentence it would be awkward to say, "Can a man arrive at
excellence who has no desire to arrive at excellence." We therefore
substitute the more convenient expression "to do so."
_________________________________________________________________
169
CHAPTER XI
Participles
Participles relate to nouns or pronouns, or else are governed by
prepositions.


Pages:
148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172