husband hope to be

Question

Hi,can you please advise me about grammatical structure of a sentence like "Brat Pitt, her husband hope to be, was found totally drunk last night...etc."Infinitiv "to be" specifies the subject "husband". And "hope" specifies the infinitive "to be" - correct?Is it frequent that a substantive (hope) specifies infinitive (to be)???It sounds very weird to me, even if I know this phrase is generally used and correct....What I am looking for is grammatical explanation of structure of this phrase. Thanks everyone having an idea!jan sulc

BarbaraPA · Accepted Answer

Hello Jan Sulc, and welcome to the forums.

The sentence you have quoted is quite ungrammatical.

There is a standard construction, soon-to-be. That person/thing will soon be whatever you write, but isn't yet. For example, when referring to your fiance the week before your wedding, you can say "soon-to-be husband."

I haven't seen that in "hoped-to-be" but I supposed you could do that, as in "Harvard, my hoped-to-be future university" -- but it seems awkward to me.

The meaning that is trying to come through is "the person that he/she hopes will be..."

So I can't give you a gammatical explanation, because it isn't grammatical. If you think it's generally used, could you give a few more examples?

Jan Sulc · Answer

Thanks very much for your quick response.
I like your explanation - it would explain everything:-)

I know this phrase just from "common speech" (in London).

I tried hard to "google up" some more examples, but in vain.

Can you confirm that it is really incorrect English?

Thank you once more for your help.
Jan Sulc

BarbaraPA · Answer

Hi again,

I can only confirm that it is "non-standard American English."

I can't say it's not standard elsewhere.

Nona the brit · Answer

It's not standard in London either.

Are you sure you didn't hear 'husband-to-be'? This is a normal construction, but not with the word 'hope' in the middle of it.

Jan Sulc · Answer

Yes, I am sure, my friends living in London (though not native speakers) used it precisely like this: "...also John should come, Jane's husband hope to be".

Thank you very much for your answer.

I am glad you solved this for me, I couldn't find the answer anywhere.

jan sulc

Nona the brit · Answer

There you go then, they are not native speakers, so they just made a mistake. Native Londoners wouldn't say this.

Khoff · Answer

Jane's husband hope to be

It sounds to me like it could be a literal translation of an idiom in some other language.

husband hope to be

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