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Worrywart
Joined: 06 Apr 2006
Posts: 6
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 Posted: Wed May 03, 2006 7:22 am Post subject: All he does is |
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Dear all,
All he does is watch TV. All he does is to watch TV. It seems to me that both the sentenses are correct. Am I right? If so, which one is more common? Why do native speakers omit "to" in the first place? Doesn't it look a little "weird"? There seem to be two verbs in a single sentence. Thanks in advance.
Worrywart from Taiwan |
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Kristea
Joined: 17 Nov 2005
Posts: 167
Location: Minneapolis, MN USA
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| Posted: Wed May 03, 2006 2:13 pm Post subject: Re: All he does is |
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| Worrywart wrote: |
Dear all,
All he does is watch TV. All he does is to watch TV. It seems to me that both the sentenses are correct. Am I right? If so, which one is more common? Why do native speakers omit "to" in the first place? Doesn't it look a little "weird"? There seem to be two verbs in a single sentence. Thanks in advance.
Worrywart from Taiwan |
Hello Worrywort!
Only the first sentence is correct. Native speakers do not use "to watch" as you have noted. Why is a trickier reason. I will give this my best shot at an explanation.
He watches TV - it is all that he does. In a strange way you are joining these two sentences - embedding sentences in a way. So you retain the idea that he watches TV by keeping "watch" as a verb and not as an infinitive.
Hope that helps - Kristi
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"That man is a success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much." R.L. Stevenson |
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