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I have 2 questions about the 3 sentences below.

Sentence 1: Source: Novel "Holes" by Louis Sachar (1998) - Page79- Line 8 （You can find this sentence on Google Books.）

Tell Becca that when she feels up to it to come by the store for a piece of candy.

S2: This is a canned sentence that I've found on about 20 websites.

Later when you feel up to it, to read these few Scriptures of Comfort.

S3: This is a sentence I found on the Internet.

Just try to make sure that if and when you don’t feel up to it to rest and say no to things.

I know that the 3 sentences above are grammatically incorrect.

Question 1: Suppose I ask the authors of these incorrect English sentences to rewrite them using grammatically correct English. How do you think they will correct them ? My guess is as follows.

S1-Correction

Tell Becca that when she feels up to it, she can come by the store for a piece of candy.

S2-C

Later when you feel up to it, you can read these few Scriptures of Comfort.

S3-C

Just try to make sure that if and when you don’t feel up to it, you rest and say no to things.

Is my guess reasonable?

Q2: The S1 sentence is an expression from a 1998 novel. If the sentence had a typo, it should have been corrected now, but it has not. In other words, it seems that the author intentionally used the incorrect English expression. Why did the author intentionally use it? Does this suggest the possibility that there are a few people somewhere on earth who misuse infinitives as clauses? What do you think the author's intention was?

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  • @TinfoilHat: I'm not much of a prescriptivist, but I think quite a few people would say that #1 as presented actually is "ungrammatical", and that it should be Tell Becca that when she feels up to it she should come by the store... OR remove the word that and just accept the potential ambiguity regarding the target verb for adverbial when she feels up to it.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Dec 1, 2023 at 14:55
  • I'd agree that all three are ungrammatical.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Dec 1, 2023 at 15:47
  • Does this answer your question? Feel confused about to-infinitive in a sentence (Unrelated: why do we ask users to answer in the answer box and not in comments? )
    – livresque
    Commented Dec 2, 2023 at 1:10
  • @livresque : No, it doesn't. I am interested in examples of the use of grammatically incorrect infinitives that appear to be used within that-clause.
    – L-traveler
    Commented Dec 4, 2023 at 5:33

1 Answer 1

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There are often multiple ways to rephrase things. Yours are fine. Here are some alternate versions:

Tell Becca when she feels up to it to come by the store for a piece of candy.

"That" is gone, as it should be if we're going to have "to" used this way. This feels a little informal, but I don't think anyone would blink on reading it. It does suggest that "when she feels up to it" is when you should tell Becca, not when she should come to the store. This is clearer:

Tell Becca to come by the store for a piece of candy when she feels up to it.

Later, when you feel up to it, read these few Scriptures of Comfort.

The "to" is just not correct there. There's an implied "you" in it, as with imperative sentences generally.

Just try to make sure to rest and say no to things, if and when you don’t feel up to it.

This one's like sentence 1: it stays infinitive, shouldn't have "that," and it's clearer if we put the modifying clause for the infinitive after the infinitive.

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  • 2
    -1 for "That" is gone, as it should be. If you remove that, the default interpretation changes. With that, the meaning is the addressee should say to Becca "When you feel up to it, come by the store...". But without that the addressee is being instructed to say "Come by the store..." when the addressee has reason to believe Becca will feel up to to it. Not exactly the same thing.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Dec 1, 2023 at 14:37
  • That's addressed here: 'It does suggest that "when she feels up to it" is when you should tell Becca, not when she should come to the store. This is clearer: Tell Becca to come by the store for a piece of candy when she feels up to it.'
    – Maverick
    Commented Dec 1, 2023 at 14:44
  • 1
    I didn't read after that sentence. It's not that "that" shouldn't be there at all - it's that it's being used "sloppily, ambiguously". But that's easily fixed by changing to come by to she should come by. It's not really true to say that shouldn't be there in the first place - if the speaker chose to do that, we should respect the intention and fix whatever follows, rather than throw out the word that. Note that moving when she feels up to it to the end of the utterance doesn't actually remove the ambiguity - it just makes it less "noticeable".
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Dec 1, 2023 at 15:02
  • Reading is fundamental.
    – Maverick
    Commented Dec 1, 2023 at 15:27

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