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Fab54 Posted 22 years ago
Grammar

Grammar: Mr X to win...

Hello everyone,
I've seen several time in newspapers artices sentences like these:
1) Mr. X to win the election
2) Before the war to remove Saddam......
3) The overall reweightting of [...] to take account of the population shift

What do they mean? Because it seems to me a "weird" sentence Emotion: smile

Thanks
  

Top answer

Example 1 was presumably a newspaper headline, and headlines do not have to be sentences. It is simply a forecast that Mr X will the election. Examples 2 and 3 are different, because "to" is being used as shorthand for "in order to", meaning that an action is being performed (or has been or will be performed) with the aim of a certain consequence coming about.

— Edwy

  • Example 1 was presumably a newspaper headline, and headlines do not have to be sentences.
  • It is simply a forecast that Mr X will the election.
  • Examples 2 and 3 are different, because "to" is being used as shorthand for "in order to", meaning that an action is being performed (or has been or will be performed) with the aim of a certain consequence coming about.
  • World War I was described at the time as "the war to end war", meaning that this war would be so decisive in its outcome that never again would there be a reason for anyone to wage war.
  • As you probably realise, this was a tragically over-optimistic point of view!
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2 Answers
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Example 1 was presumably a newspaper headline, and headlines do not have to be sentences. It is simply a forecast that Mr X will the election.

Examples 2 and 3 are different, because "to" is being used as shorthand for "in order to", meaning that an action is being performed (or has been or will be performed) with the aim of a certain consequence coming about. World War I was described
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