I didn’t vote in the California primary this year, predominantly out of protest over the absurdity of our flawed primary system, partially out of solidarity for those shut out of the process in Florida and Michigan, and partially because I wasn’t strongly for or against any of the candidates at the time. However, on the eve of the Pennsylvania primary, I am reminded of the fact that one should always vote, even if only to negate people like this reader of The Lehigh Valley Morning Call:
“So far, Hillary has my vote because she says she will ‘try to’ do something. I’ve heard most of the other candidates from both parties say they will ‘try and’ do something. I don’t know where this ‘try and’ thing ever came from, but it’s becoming so common that almost everyone uses it. It’s ugly, awkward and incorrect. I hope this terrible misuse of the language can be stopped.”
This is not how to make a political decision. First off, (completely ignoring the likely satirical stance of the reader) proper grammar has nothing to do with the necessary qualities of a president. That would be like voting for a president on the basis of hairstyle or fashion sense. Good hair and fashion sense might well be indicative of an attention to detail that is useful as a president. So too might exceedingly proper grammar. But it also might reflect an underlying belief in style over substance, or an inability to relate to the common man. (It’s interesting to note that Obama, who’s now under fire for his “elitism”, was accused by this complainant of being a member of the grammatical unwashed.)
As far as I’m concerned (and I say this as someone who often misspeaks), the propriety of a president’s grammar has no bearing on their ability to lead the nation. I’m not against Bush for his frequent grammar missteps any more than I am against Dan Quayle for misspelling ‘potato’. Speaking is hard, and if you’re in the public spotlight, you’re going to mess up from time to time. All I’m saying is, no one’s perfect, calm the heck down. Even if you think that try and is a grievous grammatical error (which it’s not, as we’ll see), let he who is without questionable usage cast the first stone.
But more to the point of this blog, I’ve got some leads for the complainant on where — and when — this try and thing came from, and the answer is, as usual, from extension of an existing acceptable construction somewhere around the 1700s. I’m assuming you’re all familiar with the phrases come and and go and, as in:
(1) I’ll go and see what episode of Antiques Roadshow is on.
(2) Would you come and tell me whether the appraiser I like is on?
I don’t think anyone is going to say (1) or (2) are bad grammar. They’re definitely fine by me, and they’re attested well into the past at the OED (see and, B. 10). Anyway, the same basic construction, where the action of the first verb (come, go) occurs before the action of the second verb of the second one (see, tell), got applied with a few other first verbs, such as try. This yielded sentences like:
(3) Vic’s going to try and fit twenty-seven grapes in his mouth tonight.
This extension makes some sense: first Vic will try to fit the grapes in his mouth, and then he will fit the grapes in his mouth, just as in (1), I will go and then see. (It’s a little weird with try because it’s difficult to clearly say whether the final outcome should count as part of the act of trying. If I’m trying to hit a home run, and I do hit a home run, at what point did I stop trying and start doing it? It’s a sticky metaphysical situation.)
Independent of its sensibility, though, the try and extension has some history behind it. The first attestation in the OED is in 1878, in an economics primer. Google Books has examples dating back to — saints be praised! — 1603, 1657, and 1662. It’s not a new phenomenon and it used to be used in formal writings. In fact, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage hypothesizes that try and predates try to. Nowadays, though, try and is somewhat more colloquial; to me, at least, it looks out of place in formal writing. That’s not to say it does not appear in writing; in fact, the construction is commonplace in modern books, but seems more common in ones with a slightly informal tone.
But there’s nothing wrong with saying try and; it’s old, it’s well-attested, and it’s got a reasonable lineage. So please don’t base your vote on whether or not a candidate says it. Unless, of course, you’re voting in favor of a candidate who uses try and, who’s willing to stand by history and ignores the ill-informed objections of armies of pedants. That would show character.
Summary: try and is a venerable old construction with 400 years of usage backing it. For whatever reason, it’s no longer considered sufficiently formal for formal/business writing, but it’s still fine in most writing styles and certainly in speech. As Fowler said: “It is an idiom that should be not discountenanced, but used when it comes natural.”
Motivated Grammar 
23 comments
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April 21, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Jonathon
I think this is yet another example of a construction that people find ugly and awkward only because they’ve been told that it is so. I find “try and x” easier to say than “try to x,” so how exactly is it more awkward? What is ugly about it aside from the stigma of being non-standard?
April 22, 2008 at 5:27 am
goofy
In spring, when woods are getting green,
I’ll try and tell you what I mean.
– Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass
April 23, 2008 at 9:41 am
Gabe
Jonathon: I agree completely. Returning, as I always do, to “needs done”, I generally find that to be more succinct, less awkward, and frankly more beautiful to my ear than the standard “needs to be done”, or the atrocious “needs doing”. But I suppose awkward is in the eye of the benighted.
goofy: So much for my plan to write-in vote for Lewis Carroll for president.
May 14, 2008 at 11:27 am
renaissanceguy
“. . .partially out of solidarity for those shut out of the process in Florida and Michigan. . .”
They shut themselves out by allowing their state party leaders violate the rules that their party set for the primary calendar. If your state followed the rules, you shouldn’t punish yourself.
—————————————————–
Okay. People use it. People use lots of constructions that are illogical, ugly, or unconventional. Although I don’t consider myself a prescriptvist (I’m a moderate), I still prefer “try to” and use it in informal speech as well as in formal writing.
Think of . . .
“want to”
“I want to visit my friend.” NOT “I want and visit my friend.”
OR
“have to”
“I have to take the exam.” NOT “I have and take the exam.”
July 22, 2008 at 5:00 pm
renaissanceguy;
‘prescriptivist’, not prescriptvist
March 10, 2009 at 3:44 am
Benito
Very interesting, and nice to see that the use of this particular lingual construction is not just driven by ignorance, as in the case of “would of” and the like. However, the fact remains that it doesn’t really make any sense to use “and” in this context (and if it does, because the successful outcome of the trying is assured then, as you say, the “try” part is redundant). So, while I’m happy to hear “try and” in informal speech, I don’t like seeing it written down outside of quotations. Which is why I found this post… someone has used “try and” on our website and I wanted to back myself up before asking for it to be changed :)
April 20, 2009 at 8:00 am
JK
I do not mind if people continue to use the “try and” phrase as long as they do not mind sounding like idiots.
August 12, 2009 at 12:35 pm
KS
I am sorry, my friend, but your “go and / come and” attempts at justification just don’t work. Both are examples of compound verbs. A subject first goes (or comes) and then “sees” or “tells.” You could also say “Come over here, pour yourself a cup of coffee, and tell me a story.” In the case of “try and,” you really cannot construct such a sentence because the verb following “”try and” is a part of an infinitive adverb. In the case of “The candidate said she would try to do something,” the phrase “to do something” is an infinitive that serves as an adverb. It relates to the verb “try”, not to the subject. I am no writing genius. I am just a 34 year old musician. I can almost guarantee that I probably got my commas wrong somewhere in this post, but I think it is important to make the effort to propagate proper and logical grammar (at least in the written form.) I feel like I am watching our entire country slide into an abyss of anti-intellectualism and justifying itself at every step by referring such things as stuffy, provincial, prudish, or simply out-dated.
December 16, 2009 at 8:47 am
Ryan
Echoing JK’s point: one could speak pure gibberish and sound like an idiot, but if it were accepted by enough people, then the definition of gibberish changes and that individual is no longer an idiot. Grammar reflects the prevailing trends of a dialect and era; it is relative and, unfortunately, not a fundamental law of the universe. If we give credence to logic–and I believe we do–the usage in question (“try and ‘verb'”) is illogical. Call it idiomatic, if you must, in order to explain away the incongruity.
February 18, 2010 at 8:05 pm
LS
I vote for “try to”. “Try to ” is one action so “and” is incorrect. “Go and ” is two, the going and the ing.
March 19, 2010 at 11:48 am
Brent Lium
I think it should be “try to” for one simple reason. It is a singular action or phrase, not multiple, therefore it does not need an “and”. Your examples are two actions joined by an “and”.
1) I’ll go (into the next room) and see what episode of Antiques Roadshow is on.
2) Would you come (over here) and tell me whether the appraiser I like is on?
Both of those are two actions/phrases joined by “and”.
(3) Vic’s going to try and fit twenty-seven grapes in his mouth tonight.
Technically that may qualify as two actions as you state. the first being “trying” to fit the grapes in his mouth and the second actually doing it. No one really thinks of it that way. It is thought of as one singular action so “and” is not right.
One last point, attempt is a synonym for try. Would you ever say “Vic is going to attempt and fit twenty-seven grapes in his mouth tonight”? Absolutely not.
March 19, 2010 at 12:29 pm
Gabe
Brent: First, the idea that the phrase does not need an “and” doesn’t mean that it needs to not have an “and”. That’s important.
Second, synonymous words do not necessarily use identical structures. Consider:
(1a) I gave the school a book.
(1b) ?I donated the school a book.
Thirdly, you are mistaken that I absolutely would not say “Vic’s going to attempt and fit 27 grapes in his mouth.” I don’t think it would be my preferred way of saying it, but it’s not unacceptable for me. If you search for “attempt and fit” as a string on Google, you’ll find ~15 hits that sound mostly fine to me.
April 19, 2010 at 1:51 pm
James
Both 1a) and 1b) above are grammatical, even though the latter may not be idiomatic, whereas “attempt and fit” is clearly neither grammatical nor idiomatic:
If I am going to “pick and press twenty-seven grapes” then I am first going to “pick twenty-seven grapes” and then “press twenty-seven grapes”. By the same construction, if I am to “attempt and fit twenty-seven grapes”, that means that I am first going to “attempt twenty-seven grapes” and then “fit twenty-seven grapes”. What does it mean to “attempt twenty-seven grapes”?
April 20, 2010 at 10:28 am
Vance
James, you’re simply denying that “attempt and fit” can have the idiomatic sense “attempt to fit”. Gabe thinks it can. How might we settle this question?
June 29, 2010 at 3:40 pm
James Badham
It you seriously think that the various “attempt and fit” usages that come up in a google search of that phrase sound fine, then you have no ear for language. One of the examples is “Don’t attempt and fit multiple exercise sessions into one hour” or something very similar. That’s just ridiculous. The person who identified the difference between the compound very and the adverbial infinitive has it right.
June 29, 2010 at 5:47 pm
Gabe
James: Sorry, I said that ambiguously; by “mostly good” I mean that most of the sentences sound good to me, not that all of them sound mostly good to me. That said, the example you give isn’t great, but it really doesn’t sound that bad to me. Ones that sound better to me include:
“This was a good strategy by the Cherokee, to attempt and fit in […]”
http://www.bookrags.com/essay-2005/5/9/638/57373
“I’d like to attempt and fit the 4BT swap in with only a short arm lift”
http://www.4btswaps.com/forum/showthread.php?2546-Diesel-Grand-Cherokee-Swap-(DD-Trail-Rig)
“[…] with a cramped ride for anyone who dare attempt and fit in the rear seat.”
http://newpontiaccars.net/tag/1995-pontiac-firebird-convertible
Are they great? No. Would I personally use “and” in these sentences? I don’t think so. But do these strike me as uninterpretable, ungrammatical, confounding, or even distracting? No. I read them naturally; at worst, those sound to me like an idiom with which I am unfamiliar.
And to further push the point that this is in fact a graded distinction, I do find this usage much worse than the three I gave above:
“Doing so creates a visual reference to the mark and identity without having to attempt and fit complex detail into such a small area.”
http://logodesignerblog.com/logo-design-to-favicon
August 27, 2010 at 6:07 am
Bill Thompson
My problem with “try and do something” comes when you separate the compound verb.
“I will go and see the building.” -> “I will go.” + “I will see the building.”
“I will try and eat 15 marshmallows.” -> “I will try.” + “I will eat 15 marshmallows.”
Sure, there’s not ungrammatical about “I will try.” What does it add? Nothing but words. A declaration that I will eat 15 marshmallows implies an attempt. If the uncertainty needs to be underscored, “try to” does that while “try and” does not.
February 9, 2012 at 9:07 am
Wesley Rice
Ugh. People, people, people. You’re looking at it all wrong. You must identify the *function* of these words to better understand them. KS was on the right track when he referred to the infinitive. However, the traditional use of “try + to + (verb)” is not acting as an adverb; it’s acting as a direct object (this is an important distinction in this case).
But let me backtrack for a moment. First we need to examine the verb “try.” This is acting in most of these cases as a *transitive* verb. That means that it is *transferring* its action to an intended object (commonly called the “direct” object). Let me use a modified form of Gabe’s example (I’d use the the actual example, but he unnecessarily complicates it by using a compound infinitive, placing an additional “to” before “try,” which is not analagous to his other two compound verb comparisons).
Ex.1) Vic will try and fit twenty-seven grapes in his mouth tonight.
Now let’s separate the verbs in the compound.
Ex.1b) Vic will try.
Ex.1c) Vic will fit twenty-seven grapes in his mouth tonight.
Since “try” is a transitive verb, you are left with an incomplete thought. “Try” NEEDS a direct object. Try what?
Gabe would have you believe that the two verbs share a direct object, but that wouldn’t work with “try.”
Ex.1d) Vic will try twenty-seven grapes in his mouth tonight.
The “grapes” here are not an adequate direct object to “try” because A) they’re already the direct object of “fit” and B) the actual object of “try” is the action of fitting the grapes in his mouth, not just the grapes themselves. The previous example suggests more of a taste test than anything else. So we can clearly not treat “try” and “fit” as compound verbs.
The only reasonable sentence structure then would be the following:
Ex.2) Vic will try to fit twenty-seven grapes in his mouth tonight.
In this case we have a single verb phrase “will try” following the subject “Vic.” The direct object of “try” is the infinitive “to fit.”
Brief infinitive lesson…
An infinitive is “to” + a verb. This combination then acts as a different part of speech (either a noun, adjective, or adverb).
Here are a couple of examples:
Ex.3) The thing TO DO is paying attention in school. (“to do” is acting as an adjective, describing which “thing”)
Ex.4) Joe really likes TO SWIM. (“to swim” is acting as a noun, the direct object of “likes”)
In summary, let’s return to Example 2, “Vic will try TO FIT twenty-seven grapes in his mouth tonight.”
In this case you have the transitive verb “try,” and an infinitive “to fit” that serves as its direct object (or, if you prefer, the infinitive PHRASE “to fit twenty-seven grapes in his mouth tonight” that serves as its direct object).
Any questions?
May 10, 2012 at 4:56 am
Colin Denovan
If I said to someone: “Can you kick that ball over the fence?” They would reply:”I’ll try to”…not “I’ll try and”!!!
“I went to the store TO buy some milk AND while I was there I bought some bread. There is a difference.
July 12, 2012 at 6:20 am
Jake Moses
I think your logic is flawed. ‘Come and . . . ‘ and ‘go and . . . ‘ make perfect sense. The person is performing two different actions, hence two verbs are required. ‘Try and’ makes no sense, and your example of the grapes comes off as labored and unbelievable. ‘Try and’ and ‘try to’ are 100% interchangeable. If you said someone was going to, “try to fit 27 grapes in his mouth,” people would not take that to mean that the person would first try to do it, then would do it. That’s nonsensical and the same applies to the ‘try and’ construction. When someone says, “Vic will try and fit 27 grapes in his mouth,” it is meant and understood that he will attempt the feat. His success in the matter is not postulated.
December 2, 2013 at 5:56 am
BrianB
The construct exists because “try and” is easier to pronounce than “try to.” The mouth is a lazy beast and seeks the path of least resistance.
This is pretty common in every language.
IMO, “try and” is fine in informal writing. It should not be used in formal writing, including fiction (save for dialogue, of course).
October 4, 2015 at 5:47 am
Tony F.
The herd instinct takes over in cases like this. Many users here (proponents of “who cares if people say ‘try and…’? Don’t you have better things to do than to be so picky?”)illustrate this sort of thinking, which amounts to: “Everyone says ‘try and…’ and I don’t want to appear fussy or different, so that usage is correct.”
Let’s go to pronunciation as an example of the herd instinct. How many of you pronounce the word “species” as “SPEE-seez” instead of “SPEE-sheez”? OK, all you “SPEE-seez” people, how many of you say “SPES-ee-al” instead of “SPESH-al,” or “sooper-FIS-ee-all” instead of “sooper-FISH-al”? Same with “nucular” instead of nuclear? In short, just because “everyone says it like that, so you’re just being anal” is not a reason to say something that alters the language and makes it sound as though most people need remedial English.
It is try TO, not try AND, sorry. All the clever rationalization and justification doesn’t suddenly change that. What’s really funny is that the author of the original piece, with his ‘Vic and the mouthful of grapes’ example, says:
“(3) Vic’s going to try and fit twenty-seven grapes in his mouth tonight.
This extension makes some sense: first Vic will try to fit the grapes in his mouth, and then he will fit the grapes in his mouth,…”
OK, if they mean the same thing, why did the author use “try to” when giving his example?
November 15, 2015 at 7:56 am
Grammar Phantom
There is NEVER a reason to try AND do something. It’s sort of like saying, “I’m trying and quit smoking.” That, itself, is idiotic, because one either quits or one doesn’t. But I digress… The phrase “try and” is ALWAYS wrong, and everybody knows there are NO absolutes…ever.