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chenchen_castrourdiales
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Infinitive of purpose
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Dear colleagues,
I have always said sentences like "I got up early not to be late." The point is that when having to cover this piece of grammar to my FCE students I discovered that when the purpose is negative we have to use "in order not to" or "so as not to" instead. Is my sentence grammatically incorrect? Thanks in advance. |
5 Jun 2010
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L. habach
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Yes it is incorrect. We use "so as not to / in order not to" when the purpose is negative:
Helen has given up eating junk food so as not to get overweight. |
6 Jun 2010
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Apodo
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Yes. There is something missing in your sentence.
I got up early so I wouldn �t be late. (This sounds the most natural to me)
I got up early so as not to be late.
I got up early in order to be on time.
I got up early in order not to be late. (This sounds more formal) |
6 Jun 2010
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Baadache
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hi,
add to that , you can say :
I got up early so that I wouldn �t be late.
good luck |
6 Jun 2010
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PaulG
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You can also say: I got up early to not be late but I think it �s a little more informal. |
6 Jun 2010
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dennismychina
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You should obviously teach the correct form to your students. However at their level they would understand about formal and informal speech, so explain to them that the former is informal (conversation) English and is used by people who are proficient enough in the language to be able to leave out words which are unnecessary to convey a meaning.
eg. By leaving out the words; �in order not to" or "so as not to" we still know what the speaker means.
Enjoy. |
6 Jun 2010
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Apodo
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Sorry PaulG. I don �t agree with you. Even in informal English we wouldn �t leave out that much, unless it �s a dialect or something where you �ve heard it.
I got up early to not be late this definitely sounds a bit odd to me.
I got up early to be on time. It works OK with the affirmative.
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6 Jun 2010
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afteleg
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I have read that
we use so + couldn �t/wouldn �t/ instead of to
when the purpose is negative
the use of so as not to
and in order not to are also correct. |
6 Jun 2010
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