Subj : Women don't like rain To : Alexander Koryagin From : Ardith Hinton Date : Tue Jul 02 2019 17:20:18 Hi, Alexander! Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton: AH>> [...] you could correctly say "he should not (do so)" AH>> or "he ought not to (do so)". AK> I meant something like this: AK> -----Beginning of the citation----- AK> "Instead of which," I said, "in a month's time I take AK> the most important examination of my career." AK> "I should advise you not to." (Ch. Snow) AK> ----- The end of the citation ----- AK> I.e. the main idea (I take the most important AK> examination) was replaced by "to" Supplementing Anton's comments WRT the issue... you can't replace a verb with a preposition. In the above example Snow used the infinitive form of the verb "(to) take" the second time, anticipating that the reader would recall & mentally add "take" etc. in accordance with the original statement. When you tried to do the same, your choice of "should" introduced an added complication: although native speakers use "to" with "ought" they don't use it with "should". You can, however, advise a person to do or not to do something. Where I come from an infinitive is still an infinitive even if part of it has been left out. The trick is in knowing which part to leave out. ;-) --- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+ * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716) .