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Sarcandra Posted 14 years ago
Grammar
commit to vs. commit ourselves to
Hi. In the following prayer, is "ourselves" necessary?
Lord, help us to commit ourselves to Your work out of love for You and for Your people.
Originally there was no "ourselves," but an editor inserted it. I feel it changes the meaning in some way and is wrong or unnecessary, but I can't explain how or why. I know there are senses in which "commit" needs a reflexive(?) pronoun and others in which it is unnecessary.
From Merriam-Webster:
1. He keeps delaying his decision because he doesn't want to commit himself.
2. They have not yet committed to a particular course of action.
For me, the prayer should follow example 2. What do you think?
Thanks.
Lord, help us to commit ourselves to Your work out of love for You and for Your people.
Originally there was no "ourselves," but an editor inserted it. I feel it changes the meaning in some way and is wrong or unnecessary, but I can't explain how or why. I know there are senses in which "commit" needs a reflexive(?) pronoun and others in which it is unnecessary.
From Merriam-Webster:
1. He keeps delaying his decision because he doesn't want to commit himself.
2. They have not yet committed to a particular course of action.
For me, the prayer should follow example 2. What do you think?
Thanks.
Top answer
To commit to a course of action is different from committing oneself to ***'s work. For one thing, that prayer talk is supposed to sound a bit old-timey and "High English Formal", so to speak, to the point where it is actually better if nobody talks like that, so the ordinary rules do not apply. That said, it is normal to commit to a course of action, but ***'s work is not a course of action.
- To commit to a course of action is different from committing oneself to ***'s work.
- For one thing, that prayer talk is supposed to sound a bit old-timey and "High English Formal", so to speak, to the point where it is actually better if nobody talks like that, so the ordinary rules do not apply.
- That said, it is normal to commit to a course of action, but ***'s work is not a course of action.
- "Doing" ***'s work, on the other hand, would be.
- ".
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4 Answers
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To commit to a course of action is different from committing oneself to ***'s work. For one thing, that prayer talk is supposed to sound a bit old-timey and "High English Formal", so to speak, to the point where it is actually better if nobody talks like that, so the ordinary rules do not apply. That said, it is normal to commit to a course of action, but ***'s work is not a course of action. "Doi
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enoonit is normal to commit to a course of action, but ***'s work is not a course of action. "Doing" ***'s work, on the other hand, would be. So, it's either "Lord, help us to commit ourselves to Your work ..." or "Lord, help us to commit to doing Your work ...".Are there other times when "to commit to," without the reflexive, can be followed by a noun/noun ph
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In chick flicks, they always talk abour committing to a relationship. I don't know if that is what is bugging me about this usage, but "to commit to X" seems a little overextended to me. If the Gettysburg Address had gone, "committed to the proposition that all mean are created equal ...", I think I'd feel better about it. People use "to commit to" to mean "to dedicate oneself to" to all the time,
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