Teacher Discussion Forums

[Metamorfose]

I know we've been on this time and time again in this forum, but recently I've come across a seemingly tendency* to use -ing forms rather than to+verb in verb+verb constructions with like, for example:

(1) Do you like swimming?

Is it just author's stylistic choice or has something changed and I'm not aware of (as I tend to use I like to swim)?

Thanks

José

* Indeed I've seen it in two coursebooks: Sky High and Attitude both by MacMillan. As far as I knew I like [V [ing]] constructions was more of a British style, and as the forementioned books are American, so that caught my attention.

[fluffyhamster]

Coming at this once again then, I'd say that the -ing is less "direct": 'Do you like to swim' can only really be referring to you(r) liking to swim, rather than a liking for "the activity in general", and in fact sounds strange enough that it might deserve a somewhat facetious answer like 'No, I prefer to drown'.

Another thought off the top of my head is that if you changed the 'like' to e.g. the friendlier 'fancy' (i.e. ' ~ doing/going -ing', which would get straight to a functional point: making an invitation in one conversational move, as opposed to the two-move preamble + invite of 'like [to]' + 'fancy [doing/going] -ing'), then you really would need to use at least one -ing without any intervening 'to': *Do you fancy: to swim/to go swimming? Not of course that the 'like' couldn't be changed to want' (Do you want...to go swimming/?to swim).

What I'm basically suggesting here is teaching verbs/examples where the grammatical choice actually matters, or at least is functionally kosher.