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Aug 30, 2010 16:09
13 yrs ago
Spanish term

To or NOT to?

Spanish to English Other Linguistics Vidrios o plásticos para
Siempre he tenido esta duda y, ya canoso, no he podido con ella todavía: Cuando hay una lista SIMPLE de funciones que comienzan con un verbo en infinitivo, ¿se emplea o no el "to"?

Por ejemplo:

Las funciones del administrador son:

1 Administrar el dinero
2 Contratar el personal
3 Vigilar la calidad... etc.

Perdonen la simpleza y un millón de gracias.
Proposed translations (English)
4 +5 -ing hiring personnel/staff, etc.
5 +2 to
5 +1 Both are OK
5 to
5 NOT to
4 Infinitive without to

Discussion

Josh Goldsmith Aug 31, 2010:
This may not be relevant to this question, but in a résumé in the US, it is typical to use the verb without the "to". E.g. JOB (Accountant): --manage multi-million dollar accounts; --allocate funds as per company policies...etc. In that setting, any other option (gerund or infinitive with to) would be inappropriate.
Travelin Ann Aug 30, 2010:
Strict grammar/punctation usage - once was no colon after the verb and most emphatically no colon after any form of the verb "to be."
That rule is less strictly adhered to in current usage.
Sarah Weston Aug 30, 2010:
No problem ;)
Lisa McCarthy Aug 30, 2010:
Hi Sarah Didn´t see your post there when I wrote my comment :)
Sarah Weston Aug 30, 2010:
Yes, that's just what I said, I think use of the gerund is most common.
Lisa McCarthy Aug 30, 2010:
To get around the issue you could say, using the gerund form of the verb, " The administrator's functions include/involve:
- managing money
- hiring personnel
- quality control
philgoddard Aug 30, 2010:
This is really an English-to-English question, but the answer is that you should put the "to" before the colon. The alternative is to put it at the beginning of each bullet point, which would be repetitious.

Proposed translations

+5
7 mins
Selected

-ing hiring personnel/staff, etc.

The most common way to make lists of this kind is using -ing:

The administrators' functions include:

- hiring personnel, etc.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 9 mins (2010-08-30 16:19:20 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

Otherwise, as Simon Bruni and philgoddard say the to comes before the colon to avoid repetition.
Peer comment(s):
agree lorenab23
36 mins
thanks :)
agree Wendy Streitparth
1 hr
thanks Wendy!
agree Mayella Almazan
3 hrs
thanks Mayella!
agree cmwilliams (X) : yes, use the gerund
4 hrs
thanks!
agree Mara Ballarini
10 hrs
thanks again Mara :)
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Selected automatically based on peer agreement."
+2
4 mins

to

The answer is that either works. For instance, you could say:

The functions of the administrator are:

1. To ...

OR you can put the "to" before, like this:

The functions of the administrator are to:

1 ...
2 ...
Peer comment(s):
agree Simon Bruni
0 min
agree Jenna Porter-Jacek
4 mins
Something went wrong...
4 mins

to

The administrators functions are to:

1. Manage the money...

or

The administrator's functions are:
1. To manage the money...
Something went wrong...
3 mins

NOT to

English is a simplifying language, cut where you can

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 5 mins (2010-08-30 16:15:03 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

http://humanresources.about.com/od/jobdescriptions/a/HR_assi...

for example look at position description here
Peer comment(s):
neutral Jim Tucker (X) : That list in the link doesn't help, since it contains gerunds and other nouns, avoiding the infinitive issue entirely (a viable option; cf. discussion above).
15 mins
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6 mins

Infinitive without to

administrate, contract etc.
Example sentence:

administrate money

Something went wrong...
+1
3 hrs

Both are OK

I have struggled with this question for decades. Obviously they are both OK, or we would have heard otherwise.

The modern tendency is to drop the 'to' because the repitition looks a little annoying to the eye.

Grammatically, however, as far as I'm aware, and I have studied more than 40 style manuals, there is no rule one way or the other.
Peer comment(s):
agree Parrot : It actually depends on the givens. Sometimes you may tend to one or another depending on whether you're given nouns in the enumeration. But if you want to avoid "to", just put in up there in the introductory sentence.
1 hr
Exactly.
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