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Discussion Groups / English Usage / July 2009hope someone to ....
HI, Is the following grammatical? 1. I hope someone to answer my question. I'd appreciate your help. Ray "Ray" > Is the following grammatical? > 1. I hope someone to answer my question. No. These are possible, among others: 2. I hope someone *will* answer my question. 3. I hope *that* someone *will* answer my question. 4. I *need* someone to answer my question. 5. I *want* someone to answer my question. 6. I *would like* someone to answer my question.  SignatureMark Brader, Toronto "Well, I'm back", he said. msb@vex.net -- Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings) My text in this article is in the public domain. > HI, > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > I'd appreciate your help. Not in AmE. "I hope that someone will answer my question" or "I {want / would like} someone to answer my question" is idiomatic American usage. However, BrE speakers like using the "to"-infinitive structure, so it just may be acceptable colloquial BrE. It's also possible that it's derived from "I hope for someone to answer my question", something that I would probably never say and definitely never write, but this is probably a common regionalism in the US. >> HI, >> [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > American usage. However, BrE speakers like using the "to"-infinitive > structure, so it just may be acceptable colloquial BrE. It's not! It would be as: I'd like someome to answer my question. but if you want the "hope" in there, you need: I hope someone can/will/might answer my question. But "Can anyone help, please?" would be more ideomatic in informal use. > It's also possible that it's derived from "I hope for someone to > answer my question", something that I would probably never say and > definitely never write, but this is probably a common regionalism in > the US. SignatureOnline waterways route planner: http://canalplan.org.uk development version: http://canalplan.eu > BrE speakers like using the "to"-infinitive > structure, so it just may be acceptable colloquial BrE. How can you write that and at the same time purport to know about English? > > BrE speakers like using the "to"-infinitive > > structure, so it just may be acceptable colloquial BrE. > > How can you write that and at the same time purport to know about > English? I don't purport to know much about idiomatic English of the oriental variety (eastern coast of the pond), but I do know something about American and International English. Where did you see any claim of mine that I am a speaker of or expert on BrE? Aren't you jumping at spectres of your own devise here? How can you assume that all the brands of English are similar enough to be "known" by anyone (except, of course, for limited standards in which expressions such as "just between you and I" are considered solecisms and idiotisms rather than acceptable idioms used by educated writers -- no apologies to the entertaining writer and linguist Geoffrey K. Pullum and his co-perp Rodney Huddleston, both of whom are, IMHO, unacceptably tendentious in their outré politically correct descriptivism), especially unknown (to me) posters who imply by their outrage that they "know about English" well enough never to make a hedged statement that turns out to be not the case? What would you expect a rational American to think about a dialect in which people live "in a street" instead of "on a street" and in which "knock me up" means "wake me up by knocking on my door" instead of "inseminate me to (the point of) conception"? You aren't a mathematician, by any chance, are you? And just what is wrong with what I said? You aren't going to deny that BrE speakers like using the "to"-infinitive structure, I hope. That would be false. I didn't say that it *was* acceptable in colloquial BrE, just that it *may be* -- which implies, of course, that I don't know. You do know the difference, I suppose, between a hedged conditional and an outright definite claim. In any case, unless you're simply being pointlessly argumentative because my sentence put your childhood knickers in a twist, you ought to be well aware that there are myriad posters here who claim expertise in the language simply because their genomes first saw the light of day in an anglophone political entity. For all I know, you may belong to that tribe of expert primitives. >> BrE speakers like using the "to"-infinitive >> structure, so it just may be acceptable colloquial BrE. > > How can you write that and at the same time purport to know about > English? Aren't you using "purport" in rather an odd way there? I don't usually think of it as synonymous with "claim". Signatureathel Quoth Athel Cornish-Bowden <acornish@ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr>, and I quote: >>> BrE speakers like using the "to"-infinitive >>> structure, so it just may be acceptable colloquial BrE. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >Aren't you using "purport" in rather an odd way there? I don't usually >think of it as synonymous with "claim". My reaction too. The relevant OED definition is: "Esp. of a document, picture, or object: (originally, without implied doubt as to the validity of the claim) to seem; (in later use) to profess or claim by its tenor, be intended to seem, appear ostensibly to be or do something." There is one quotation from 1918 used of a person: "Somebody purporting to be a niece of hers talked to him." That's from B. TARKINGTON Magnificent Ambersons. Is it a Leftpondian sage? SignatureJames > Quoth Athel Cornish-Bowden <acornish@ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr>, and I > quote: [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > That's from B. TARKINGTON Magnificent Ambersons. Is it a > Leftpondian sage? I'm not sure I'd consider Tarkington a "sage", though Wikipedia says he was born in Indianapolis and would therefore qualify as Leftpondian. But this sense of "purport" is certainly a Leftpondian usage. MWCD11's definition is 1 : to have the often specious appearance of being, intending, or claiming (something implied or inferred) <a book that purports to be an objective analysis>; also : CLAIM <foreign novels which he purports to have translated -- Mary McCarthy> Looking at Google Books, I see it back to the nineteenth century: Nevertheless the author dwells much upon that transition, of whose results she purports to know nothing. _The Churchman's Monthly Review_, 1844 SignatureEvan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |The bathwater, in this case, does 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |not appear to ever have contained Palo Alto, CA 94304 |any baby. | kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com | ronniecat (650)857-7572 http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ On Jun 19, 3:19 pm, Athel Cornish-Bowden <acorn...@ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr> wrote: > >> BrE speakers like using the "to"-infinitive > >> structure, so it just may be acceptable colloquial BrE. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > Aren't you using "purport" in rather an odd way there? I don't usually > think of it as synonymous with "claim". One of the meanings is "to profess". In any case, I was merely mimicking the mathematician's numerical English. >On Jun 19, 3:19 pm, Athel Cornish-Bowden <acorn...@ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr> >wrote: [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] >One of the meanings is "to profess". In any case, I was merely >mimicking the mathematician's numerical English. Hi, Franke. It's good to see you. SignatureRegards, Chuck Riggs, who speaks AmE, lives near Dublin, Ireland and usually spells in BrE |
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