Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 January 15

= January 15 =

Try and help me here
I believe the use of "try and" in place of "try to" is an abomination against the English language and is never correct. Am I correct? Its usage is quite prevalent and I am considering a manual editing campaign on Wikipedia to fix all instances. There are instances where the noun "try" is properly followed by "and", so an automated approach is not feasible. -Arch dude (talk) 01:39, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Normal usage is different in American English versus British English. "Try and" is used much more in British English and in fact is said to convey a different meaning there than "try to" does.  See the analysis by a linguist here:, and the sometimes vociferous discussion that follows.  CodeTalker (talk) 01:54, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks! That is quite helpful. It's a lot more complicated than I thought. I still feel that "try to" is almost always preferred the written form of American English, but I will not arbitrarily change this in an article that uses British English. -Arch dude (talk) 02:33, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * "Try to" and "try and" ("try 'n'") are used in free variation in casual American speech, although I'd say "try and loosen up while you dance" is more of an encouragement while "try to loosen up the fanbelt" is instructive. μηδείς (talk) 02:12, 15 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Note that while "try and" is demonstrably acceptable in BrE, it is by no means universal. I myself am an aged native BrE speaker and, while I might sometimes say "try and" in informal register, I'd never write it unless portraying the direct speech of someone who actually used it (if factual) or would do so (if a fictional character). Others' mileage undoubtably differs. (The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.62.241 (talk) 11:15, 15 January 2017 (UTC)


 * My mileage is the same, but "try and" has occasionally appeared in formal writings for centuries, including in the memoir of the Reverend John Keble by Sir John Taylor Coleridge (nephew of the poet).   D b f i r s   12:21, 15 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Not only that, but just about everyone on As Time Goes By tells Li to "try and" do something every episode. I noticed it just last week. Having seen the series about 10 times, I watch it now at the syntacto-phonetic, rather than the dramatic scale. μηδείς (talk) 18:00, 15 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Although I'm very fond of As Time Goes By, I was utterly stumped by Medeis's "Li", because I read it as a Chinese name pronounced "Lee". Only when I looked over the list of characters did I realize that this was actually Lionel's name shortened in the same way Alistair does&mdash;to what's pronounced "Lie". --69.159.60.210 (talk) 07:59, 16 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes, I fretted over how to spell that. μηδείς (talk) 18:54, 16 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Alistair (paraphrased): "Li, your book cover needs a bit more oomff, something like you fighting a lion or making passionate love to a woman."


 * Lionel (sarcastically): "Why not both at once ?" StuRat (talk) 19:53, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
 * "Or even the other way around?" {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.62.241 (talk) 10:36, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia article Serial verb construction for the linguistic phenomenon, by the way... AnonMoos (talk) 00:47, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

"Wie geht dieses Spiel?"
How would you say that in English, e. g. in the context of a child asking another one about how to play a certain game?--Hubon (talk) 01:48, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * "How do you play this game?" is how I would say it. † dismas †|(talk) 01:57, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, or "How is this game played?" although children are less likely to use a passive construction. μηδείς (talk) 02:06, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Okay, and what about: "How does this game go/work?"--Hubon (talk) 02:07, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * They are both cromulent in your context, although "how does this work" is more often applied to toys/devices or even strategies and bets than rules themselves. I bought my mother a can opener with a gear system that allows her to get more torque, so opening cans is easier on her joints.  But she complains she can't figure out how it works, not how it goes. μηδείς (talk) 02:17, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Are you travailing to embiggen your lexical éclat with cromulent? --2606:A000:4C0C:E200:C03A:9D20:31EF:82F7 (talk) 03:52, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Cromulent is a perfectly cromulent word! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:03, 15 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I prefer crapulent.
 * Some listeners may correctly assume it to be a metabolistic dysfunction but are briefly puzzled. Crapulent is a perfectly Krabappleate word. QED.  --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 18:09, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * It seems you've really opened this discussion out, Medeis. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:31, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * You say evasion, I say avoision. μηδείς (talk) 23:42, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Ladies and gentlemen – oyez, oyez, oyez – ye shall not get off the track, please! ;-) ;-) Joking aside, would then "how does this game go" be the more idiomatic solution? Or do ye know anything whatsoever else that yethink cromulent to embiggen my linguistic distinction...? ;-)--Hubon (talk) 19:14, 17 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Without any further context, either phrase is on its own equally grammatical and possible as an ordinary sentence. The trick comes down to things like Three-card Monte, where "work" means you are asking how the trick is pulled off, or watching a movie with a card game, where an impatient person who hasn't seen the movie yet asks another person who has, "How does this game go?"  In the second case he wants to know the outcome of the game, not the rules.


 * The mistake is thinking that there is a one-to-one correspondence or a dichotomy outside of a certain context. In some cases the words will be interchangeable, in others only one word could fit, and in yet others either word could be used, but with different implications.  I'd keep in mind that go focuses on destination, while work focuses on overall structure.  In most real and complete games the rules and the goal are only abstractly inseparable. Or consider the possible analogy cheat:work::win:go. μηδείς (talk) 21:14, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Okay, thanks! So, to sum up, I'd like to ask once more: What would the most simple and natural equivalent to German Wie geht dieses Spiel? (referring to a request of being informed about the rules of a game) I'm asking because it still appears a bit unclear to me what would really be regarded as an idiomatic expression in this context... Best--Hubon (talk) 20:42, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Correct common translation was already given. "Wie geht das xy" is the typical german

paraphrase used to ask for an introduction to the concept of "das/es" and the common, similar english paraphrase is "how does this/it work". --Kharon (talk) 00:18, 22 January 2017 (UTC)