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HUBLOT Posted 13 years ago
Grammar

Are "to do" and "to make" verbs

Hi teachers,



The teacher in this video calls "to do" and "to make" verbs. Wouldn't "do," not "to do," be a verb? Wouldn't "make," not "to make," be a verb?
  

Top answer

Traditional grammarians considered that 'to do', 'to make', etc were the infinitive forms of the verb - largely because the 'to' was required when the Latin or French single-word infinitives were translated into English. They used this ' to- infinitive' to talk about the verb. Some people still do this, like the teacher in your video.

— Fivejedjon

  • Traditional grammarians considered that 'to do', 'to make', etc were the infinitive forms of the verb - largely because the 'to' was required when the Latin or French single-word infinitives were translated into English.
  • They used this ' to- infinitive' to talk about the verb.
  • Some people still do this, like the teacher in your video.
  • Modern grammarians simply use the base (first) form of the verb to talk about it; many of them use capital letters (in a smaller font, if possible) for this: "The verb DO has the forms do, does, doing, did and done.
  • " Many find it convenient to speak of the bare infinitive ( do, make, be, etc ) and the to- infinitive ( to do, to make, to be, etc ).
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2 Answers
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Traditional grammarians considered that 'to do', 'to make', etc were the infinitive forms of the verb - largely because the 'to' was required when the Latin or French single-word infinitives were translated into English. They used this 'to- infinitive' to talk about the verb. Some people still do this, like the teacher in your video.

Modern grammarians simply use the base (first) f
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Thanks a lot, fivejedjon.
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