Can I say "He spent a lot of money buying books."?

Question

Hi, everyoneI need to ask a question. Can I say "He spent a lot of money buying books." ? And how about "I spent three hours on my homework." ?Thank you![&lt;:o)]

Clive · Accepted Answer

Hi,

Yes, these sound fine and very natural to me.

Clive

EnglishRaven · Answer

This is perhaps going to sound very niggly, so I apologize in advance.

For your first sentence there, without the word "on" between "money" and "buying", it (can) sound like the money was spent in the process of going or being somewhere to buy books. The "on" would help show us specifically what the money was being spent on - i.e., the books rather than something else associated with buying books.

It really is such a minor thing, and of course I can understand it perfectly without much hesitation. I'm just thinking of those ridiculously pedantic tests that are applied in some contexts, tests that would minus a point for something like this.

Best regards,

Jason

Khoff · Answer

Sorry, Jason, but "He spent a lot of money on buying books" sounds odd to me.  I would prefer either the original ("He spent a lot of money buying books") or simply "He spent a lot of money on books."  (We would assume that the money was spent buying the books rather than, say, taking them out to dinner and the theater.  If the sentence said "He spent a lot of money on women," the supposition would be reversed.)

EnglishRaven · Answer

Now that you mention it, it does perhaps sound odd like that - but is it because of the grammar or the potential redundancy of the lexis? When I thought about it, it was the occurence of "spend" and "buy" together that made it feel odd to me.

I hope others can dip into this and help me with clarifying it, too.

For example, I feel pretty sure that if you mention an indirect object for spend, you need to use the preposition "on". If the books are the indirect object for spend here (with "money" being the direct object), we absolutely need the "on" (and to be honest, according to what I said above, the "buying" could be considered redundant or unnecessary, so taking it out leaves just "books" and that to me sounds much more natural - "I spent a lot of money on books").

I find the original sentence feels slightly messy when we try to expand it to other examples as well:

- I spent a lot of money flying to London ?

To me that statement is potentially ambiguous in that it could mean I spent a lot of money while flying to London, rather than specifically the money spent on securing the travel.

Interesting!

- Jason

Can I say "He spent a lot of money buying books."?

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions