Elantris: "Try and" vs. "Try to"

[Mike]

I noticed while reading the Mistborn trilogy and now Elantris that Sanderson frequently uses "try and" rather than "try to". Apparently "try and" is a standard English idiom, but it always jars me outside of colloquial speech. Overall I find Sanderson to be a very clear writer, but I keep stumbling over this.

Through the wonder of Kindle, I checked a few other books, and "try to" is overwhelmingly more popular than "try and". *Name of the Wind*, for instance, has only three instances of "try and" vs. 22 of "try to". *Mistborn: The Final Empire* is 24 "to" vs. 25 "and", but *Way of Kings* is 63 for "to" vs. 3 for "and" (and 2/3 of those are in dialogue) --- so Sanderson (or his editor) seems to have come around.

Or I wonder if Sanderson has a different editor for WoK than his earlier works.

Does "try and" bother anyone else?

[Kate]

I don't mind it in direct speech, but it would irk me otherwise, unless the narrative voice was intentionally (and for good reason) conversational.

[Mike]

Kate wrote: "I don't mind it in direct speech, but it would irk me otherwise, unless the narrative voice was intentionally (and for good reason) conversational."

Yeah, there's no problem with it in dialogue.

[Boots]

I hadn't actually noticed the use of "try and" but I did notice that he uses "this people" as opposed to "these people" and I stumble over it all the time and he seems to use it a lot especially in the Mistborn series.

[Sean]

"Try and" is the stronger form -- if I say, "Try and lift that weight," I'm telling you to both make an attempt at it and to succeed in doing so, whereas "Try to lift that weight," only specifies the attempt. Note that Tolkien, who knew more about the English language than any of us could ever hope to, was rather annoyed when an editor changed all instances of "try and" to "try to" in LotR.

[Anne]

Sean, I would +1 your last message if I could. Awesome trivia.

[Kate]

Sean wrote: ""Try and" is the stronger form -- if I say, "Try and lift that weight," I'm telling you to both make an attempt at it and to succeed in doing so, whereas "Try to lift that weight," only specifies t..."

I will require a citation.
It strikes that by your definition 'try and' would still only be appropriate in direct speech or conversational narration.

[Mike]

Yeah I don't think that's true.

[Nevan]

Grammar Girl doesn't seem to have a solid answer for this particular conundrum, so I guess it's more of a stylistic choice than an ironclad rule.

However, 11 Points maintains that "try and" is inferior; again, no citations are provided. And for the record, I think that the "try and" on the t-shirt is a deliberate satire of certain 'Murricans'.

[Sean]

Kate wrote: "I will require a citation."

Just parse the phrases -- "Try and do it," is two different actions, the effort and the deed, while "try to do it," is just the effort. There are situations in which "try to" is more appropriate, but when you want to convey that the effort brought success, "try and" is the better choice.

It strikes that by your definition 'try and' would still only be appropriate in direct speech or conversational narration.

Well that's nice, but I think any such rule belongs in the rubbish bin with "don't split infinitives," and "don't end a sentence with a preposition."

[Mike]

I've searched a number of Kindle books now and "try to" is far and away more popular. In the cases where "try and" is used, I can't see any semantic pattern---it seems like more of an editorial oversight.

[Sean]

Nevan wrote: "However, 11 Points maintains that "try and" is inferior; again, no citations are provided. And for the record, I think that the "try and" on the t-shirt is a deliberate satire of certain 'Murricans'. "

The case cited there is, "I try to walk away and I stumble." "Try to" is correct because she didn't actually walk away, she only made an attempt which failed. However, if I said, "I tried to lift the weight," it's ambiguous whether I succeeded, whereas, "I tried and lifted the weight," is clear.

[Mike]

Clear but redundant. Would you ever write that, or just write "I lifted the weight?" It's rare that you lift weights without trying. Generally it's assumed that if you did something you tried to do it, unless you did it by accident.

I suppose an exception would be "tried and failed". That's the one place where I can actually see it working.

Interesting discussion here which includes the Tolkien anecdote: http://english.stackexchange.com/ques...

[Kate]

Sean wrote: "The case cited there is, "I try to walk away and I stumble." "Try to" is correct because she didn't actually walk away, she only made an attempt which failed. However, if I said, "I tried to lift the weight," it's ambiguous whether I succeeded, whereas, "I tried and lifted the weight," is clear.
"

Thank you, you've helped me put my finder on why 'try and' seems wrong in formal speech. It's because it's a contraction. In the way you mean in 'I tried and lifted the weight' really means 'I tried to lift the weight and I lifted the weight'
Are contractions always wrong? No. But their generally discouraged. In the case of 'try and lift the weight' it sounds obnoxious.
'Try and lift the weight' implies the speaker knows that the task may not be accomplished.
'Lift the weight' is a clear instruction that would not ordinarily be given unless success was assumed.
'Try and lift the weight' suggests the speakers is aware that you may not be able to lift the weight, but that they will also be pissed if you don't.

This presumes your definition is correct. I'm not convinced that 'try and' isn't just a bastardization of 'try to' that was assigned a different meaning based on the logic of its form(and not one in wide usage from what I can see) after its emergence.

Mike wrote: "
Interesting discussion here which includes the Tolkien anecdote: http://english.stackexchange.com/questio... "
Yeah that's the only other reference to the anecdote I can find on google, also without a citation.

[Boots]

The New Oxford American Dictionary says this:

'informal used after some verbs and before another verb to indicate intention, instead of “to” : I would try and do what he said | come and see me.

A small number of verbs—notably try, come, and go —can be followed by ‘and’ with another verb, as in sentences like : we're going to try and explain it to them or : why don't you come and see the film? Such structures in these verbs correspond to the use of the infinitive ‘to,’ as in : we're going to try to explain it to them or : why don't you come to see the film? Since these structures are grammatically odd and, though extremely common, are mainly restricted to informal English, they are regarded as wrong by some and should be avoided in formal standard English. Notice that the use is normally only possible with the infinitive of the verb—that is, it is not possible to say : I tried and explained it to them.'

[Sean]

Kate wrote: "Thank you, you've helped me put my finder on why 'try and' seems wrong in formal speech. It's because it's a contraction. In the way you mean in 'I tried and lifted the weight' really means 'I tried to lift the weight and I lifted the weight'
Are contractions always wrong? No. But their generally discouraged.

That's a prescriptivist argument. I'm firmly in the camp that holds that clarity and precision trump all rules and style books.

(Oh, and it's "they're" not "their.")

In the case of 'try and lift the weight' it sounds obnoxious.
'Try and lift the weight' implies the speaker knows that the task may not be accomplished. "

No, it's "try to" that does that.

Yeah that's the only other reference to the anecdote I can find on google, also without a citation.

Try Google Books, which will give you a quote directly from "The Note on the Text" from the beginning of Fellowship:

These "corrections" include the altering of "dwarves" to "dwarfs," "elvish" to "elfish," "further" to "farther," "nasturtians" to "nasturtiums," "try and say" to "try to say" and ("worst of all" to Tolkien) "elven" to elfin."

[Mike]

Ah, ok, so the idea is along the lines of "try and say what you mean" --- the idea being that if you try, you will succeed --- while if you use "try to say what you mean" you could imply that failure is possible.

[Kate]

Sean wrote: "That's a prescriptivist argument. I'm firmly in the camp that holds that clarity and precision trump all rules and style books."

But it's not clear or precise, depending on how you unpack it it's either contradictory or redundant.

The indefinite outcome of the instructed task (lifting the weight*) it indicated by try.
Saying 'try to lift the weight' instead of 'try and lift the weight' doesn't remove the indefiniteness**
otherwise the meaning of 'try and lift the weight' would be the same as 'lift the weight'
'try to lift the weight' - make an attempt at this task; whether the weight is lifted not a condition of the task being completed
'lift the weight' - complete this task; whether the weight is lifted at the end will indicate that the task is complete
'try and lift the weight' - there appear to be two tasks, in direct speech it's going to be pretty clear that I'm either being an asshole (Due to your puny upper body strength it would be outrageous to think that you can do anything more than try, however I expect the weight to be lifted and will consider my orders to have been disobeyed if the weight does not in fact get lifted) or being encouraging (I know you don't think you can do it so I'm only asking you to try, yet I am so confident in your abilities that I am sure the weight lifting will be accomplished).
Outside of speech though the tone and the sense are less clear.

Again, this is only if I accept your definition of 'try and' but if we're being descriptivists about this I'd argue that 'try and' doesn't get used in the way you claim. In most ordinary speech it's used synonymous with 'try to'

When I tell my boss I'll try and get around to answering my emails I don't think I convey a stronger intention to actually answer those damn emails than I would if I told her I'd 'try to' get to them.
In fact I think I sound less likely to, given that I (along with many others) would probably drop the d in and 'try an' just take as much articular effort as 'try to'.

Sean wrote:Oh, and it's "they're" not "their."

Correct. Mercifully the rules on that are very clear.

And thank you for the citation.

*anyone starting to feel like they should be at the gym instead of arguing about grammar?

**Virtual cookies for someone who can point me at a better adjecteve to describe the state of being indefinate

[Michael]

I love that 1) this thread exists and 2) I willingly read the entire thing.

[Dan]

I don't know if this scenario clears it up, but now I'm thinking of a coach in the gym asking his team, "Did anyone try to lift that barbell?"

"Nope."

"Yes sir, I tried, but couldn't do it."

"No."

"Nah."

"Yes, I tried and lifted that damn thing. I'll be sore for a week."

"Try" and "lift" are two separate verbs here, and there is nothing incorrect in the usage. "Try" may seem redundant, but in this case it is used to stress the attempt rather than only the end result. I agree with Sean.

Mike wrote: "I love that 1) this thread exists and 2) I willingly read the entire thing."

So true... I laughed when I read this!