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09 Sep 2016, 07:31
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One example would be my question itself.
When I say, Baby I don't want your dollar bills to have fun tonight. Do I not want dollar bills-?personified- to have fun? or the other (?obvious) meaning ?
Had it been , baby I don't want your dollar bills having fun tonight. Would that make the difference?
EDIT:
You need to continue to study? (not studying)
I need to practice listening ? (not to listen)
Can someone break it down please ?
When I say, Baby I don't want your dollar bills to have fun tonight. Do I not want dollar bills-?personified- to have fun? or the other (?obvious) meaning ?
Had it been , baby I don't want your dollar bills having fun tonight. Would that make the difference?
EDIT:
You need to continue to study? (not studying)
I need to practice listening ? (not to listen)
Can someone break it down please ?
09 Sep 2016, 14:24
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silas12
One example would be my question itself.
When I say, Baby I don't want your dollar bills to have fun tonight. Do I not want dollar bills-?personified- to have fun? or the other (?obvious) meaning ?
Had it been , baby I don't want your dollar bills having fun tonight. Would that make the difference?
EDIT:
You need to continue to study? (not studying)
I need to practice listening ? (not to listen)
Can someone break it down please ?
Dear silas12,When I say, Baby I don't want your dollar bills to have fun tonight. Do I not want dollar bills-?personified- to have fun? or the other (?obvious) meaning ?
Had it been , baby I don't want your dollar bills having fun tonight. Would that make the difference?
EDIT:
You need to continue to study? (not studying)
I need to practice listening ? (not to listen)
Can someone break it down please ?
I'm happy to respond.
My friend, you have a few different questions tangled together here. Part of the answer is that some constructions idiomatically demand either the infinitive or the gerund. The verb "practice" + [action] always idiomatically takes the gerund. The verb "want" + [action] or "want" + [object] + [action] idiomatically take the infinitive. There is no substitute for learning idioms. See these free GMAT Idiom flashcards.
Incidentally, notice that "want" + [object] + [gerund] is an informal construction used in colloquial American English, but it sounds very lax and sloppy. This would have no place in the formal academic language of the GMAT SC.
Some verbs are not bound to one or the other. The verb "continue" + [action] can take either the gerund or the infinitive.
You need to continue to study? Yes, I need to continue studying.
Both fine.
Of course, a gerund can be the object of a preposition, and an infinitive can never do so.
Another structure, unrelated to rules of idiom, is the infinitive of purpose. Because this rhetorical structure is not idiomatically tied to any particular verb, we have a bit more choice about where we place it in the sentence.
1) To live comfortably, I want a million dollars in the bank.
2) I want a million dollars in the bank to live comfortably.
Version #1 is 100% clear. Version #2 might be misconstrued as a poetic statement: I want my hypothetical million dollar to perform the action of living comfortably. Depending on context, the poetic reading may or may not be a plausible one, and you will notice that the GMAT SC, despite all its other virtues, is none too poetic! Whenever the verb takes an infinitive idiomatically, the infinitive of purpose could be misconstrued as an infinitive idiomatically accompanying the verb. If there is any possibility of ambiguity, we usually can move the infinitive of purpose to another part of the sentence. Once again, version #1 is 100% clear and problem free.
Does all this make sense?
Mike
09 Sep 2016, 21:54
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mikemcgarry
silas12
Does all this make sense?
Mike
Sure does, thank you so much!
PS :Before I started preparing for GMAT, I thought I was pretty good at (or is it in
) English. Now, writing simple sentences is scarier than ever. 
