Subj : to be or not to be that is the question
To   : Dallas Hinton
From : Ardith Hinton
Date : Sun Mar 18 2018 07:56:53

Hi, Dallas!  Recently you wrote in a message to alexander koryagin:

 ak>  University had ordered Thursday that the cables be tightened

 ak>  I would write it with "to":
 ak>  ....it had ordered Thursday that the cables _to_ be tightened.

 ak>  Is there any difference?

 DH>  I'm afraid you simply can't say that!!



          As a native speaker you wouldn't use both "that" and "to" in the same 
breath here... but you might omit "that", as in the words of a popular song:


                Tell Laura I love her.
                Tell Laura I may be late.


IMHO "that" is omitted, at least in part, because we hear in another line:


                Tell Laura not to cry.



 DH>  You could say "cables should be" or "cables will be" or
 DH>  even "cables are to be", but not "cables to be tightened"
 DH>  -- there's no verb in your version.



          Yes, there is... grammatically "(to) be" is a verb, but it's referred 
to as a linking or copula verb when there's no apparent action:


                Spring is a season of the year.
                Spring is just around the corner.
                The sky is blue.


and it's used as an auxiliary verb when there is some apparent action:


                The sun is shining.
                The little birds are singing beautiful songs.



          I think (simplifying the construction a bit here) Alexander is trying 
to understand why we use or don't use "to" in situations like:


                1)  The teacher ordered that the class be silent.

                2)  The teacher ordered the class to be silent.


Either way "(to) order" is a transitive verb... i.e. it acts upon somebody &/or 
something.  #1 follows the same pattern as "Tommy ordered a dozen red roses" if 
we interpret the subordinate clause "that the class be silent" as a grammatical 
equivalent to something.  #2 follows the same pattern as "Gerard's boss expects 
him to complete this task immediately if not sooner".  In the example Alexander 
cited we aren't told who did the hands-on bit or why it didn't work the way the 
engineers had expected it to.  Perhaps the author didn't know or didn't want to 
blame anybody, in which case s/he had no choice but #1 in this context....  :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)

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