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I came upon a sentence 'Thrive to become an efficient and adaptive IT organisation' describing future company goals.

It seems to me that 'strive' would be more appropriate word here. Is 'thrive' used correctly in this sentence/context and can thrive/strive be used interchangeably?

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    Do dictionaries indicate or suggest that 'thrive' and 'strive' are interchangeable, at least in the example you give?
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jan 21, 2020 at 12:06
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    I didn't find any examples like this where someone would thrive to become something in the future
    – steve
    Commented Jan 21, 2020 at 14:28

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'Prosper', unlike 'strive', is a close synonym of 'thrive'. (Illustrations using 'prosper' are perhaps more accessible.)

prosper verb (used without object)

to be successful or fortunate, especially in financial respects; thrive; flourish. [Dictionary.com]

Sentences such as

  • The home of the famous Yorkshire Mixture, Joseph Dobson’s is a fascinating story of a family owned business, which has prospered to become one of the largest family owned confectionery manufacturers in England. [Dobsons UK – our business]

where 'to become ...' is an adjunct containing additional closely connected (showing results / expanding on the matrix sentence) material, are quite acceptable.

  • 'which has prospered to become ...' could be replaced by

  • 'which has prospered greatly, becoming ...' or

  • 'which has prospered greatly – so much so, that it has become ...'. ('greatly' added merely to lubricate)

is an example of the same king using 'thrive'.

So the sentence 'They prospered/thrived to become one of the largest ...' is by no means unacceptable (though I'd use the -ing form 'becoming' instead here).

However, the injunction 'Thrive' or 'Prosper' sounds very strange here, belonging in a religious or otherwise supernatural domain. One can't say that 'Thrive! Become an efficient and adaptive IT organisation!' is ungrammatical, but it's certainly verging on the outlandish.

It's quite likely, as I think you suspect, that 'Strive [= 'try your utmost'] to become an efficient and adaptive IT organisation', where strive (like try, attempt, seek) takes a to-infinitive clause thus forming a catenation, is what was intended, and that this is a malapropism.

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  • The wrong usage seems much clearer when thrive is replaced with synonym prosper, thanks
    – steve
    Commented Jan 21, 2020 at 14:31

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