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On our website's homepage we have the following sentence:

We make our software to be as flexible as possible so you can maintain and visualize the data that is important to YOU.

One of my friends insists it should be:

We make our software as flexible as possible so you can maintain and visualize the data that is important to YOU.

Which one of these is grammatically correct and why? Are both wrong?

In case anyone's interested, our beta homepage is http://intellectpersonified.com/

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    #2 is correct, but I don't know why that is. However, if you use "want" instead of "make", #1 would be correct.
    – waiwai933
    Commented Nov 24, 2010 at 3:46
  • I will add that CAPS ON THE INTERNET MEAN SHOUTING. As your prospective customer, I don't want YOU to shout at ME. Use italics for emphasis.
    – RegDwigнt
    Commented Nov 24, 2010 at 7:35

2 Answers 2

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I'm not sure about the grammatical rules, but your friend is right in terms of style. 1) definitely reads like it was literally translated from another language.

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Both look correct to me, though the first is rather stilted. (Unnecessary words are usually poor style, too.)

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  • I guess in this case it is better "not to be" :)
    – basarat
    Commented Nov 24, 2010 at 6:19
  • @Basarat Ali: Thwack. <-- my standard response to all things pun-like.
    – Marthaª
    Commented Nov 24, 2010 at 15:05
  • @Martha Rofl! lol <-- to fill the remainder characters.
    – basarat
    Commented Nov 24, 2010 at 15:23
  • Henry is spot-on- the first isn't exactly wrong, it's just that the second reads more easily because you've removed unnecessary words. Unnecessary words are... not necessary.
    – Ethan
    Commented Oct 30, 2017 at 19:09

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