‘Try and’ as they might, they’re wrong

JUNE CASAGRANDE

Try and guess what’s wrong with the sentence you’re reading now. If

you answered, “I opened this paper to read about my City Council and

not to be grilled on my own language,” you’re right. But if you

answered that “try and” is grammatically goofy, you’re right and

still reading.

Over the years, I’ve heard people complain about the increasing

use of “try and” instead of “try to.” But, for some reason, in the

last two weeks I’ve received two e-mails that are, perhaps, the most

pointed observations I’ve heard on the subject.

“I hear it more and more often on radio and television. I have

seen the phrase in the Los Angeles Times. Today’s [Burbank] Leader

[May 6] even used the term on the front page: ‘Rosales used one of

his hands to try and open his car door ... ‘ It drives me crazy to

hear ‘try and.’ I often ask people, ‘How would you put that

expression in past tense?’ If you say ‘I will try and go,’ then would

the past tense be ‘I tried and go’? Of course not! Perhaps you could

try and, er, I mean try to do a column on this topic? -- Steve

Thompson, La Crescenta.”

Steve’s point about putting “try and” in the past tense really

illustrates what a bizarre construction this is. As he said, “I tried

and go” is just wacky. “I tried and went” is just as wacky.

Dave Close of Costa Mesa also found a uniquely poignant way to

illustrate the problem with “try and.”

“I thought I should call your attention to one that annoys me

almost daily, and probably annoys you, too. I refer to the current

propensity to use the phrase, ‘to try and,’ in place of the correct

and perfectly adequate, ‘to try to.’ For example, ‘The politician

promised to try and put the matter on the agenda.’ Syntactic parsing

seems to show that the politician promised to do two things: (1) to

try, and (2) to put the matter on the agenda.

Syntactically, it’s not clear just what he promised to ‘try.’ Of

course, we understand that the speaker means that the politician

promised only one thing, to attempt to put the matter on the agenda.

There seems to be some sort of resistance to using ‘to’ twice in

close succession.”

So, as Dave and Steve pointed out, “try and” doesn’t make sense.

We form compound verbs by adding the infinitive after another verb,

such as “to say” in “I want to say something.” We don’t say, “I want

and say something.” It just doesn’t make sense, and it violates the

simple logic of how we put our verbs together.

Ready for the clincher? Despite how illogical it is, “try and” is

sometimes permissible. In American English, writes Bryan Garner of

“Garner’s Modern American Usage,” “try and” is a “casualism for ‘try

to.’” And, get this, “In British English, ‘try and’ is a standard

idiom.”

So, should you use “try and”? In my opinion, definitely not.

And I say that despite knowing that I’m sure I use this idiom all

the time without even realizing it. When you use “try and” instead of

“try to” in written form, you end up offending a lot of people who

rightly argue that “try and” is at best illogical and awkward.

If you try to argue otherwise you’re going to lose.

* JUNE CASAGRANDE is a freelance writer. She can be reached at

[email protected].