"in" and "to" in these sentences ?

Question

I am wondering why in the sentence "There's no point in doing that" people use the preposition "in" but in "There's no reason to do that" people use the infinitive marker "to" ?

Regards · Accepted Answer

Hi,

Anonymous "There's no point in doing that." "There's no reason to do that."

Those seem like *apples and oranges. There's no point in doing something is a very commonly used

phrase. You should just learn it as a set phrase. In does not have a special meaning, by the way.

It just connects the word point to the word doing. That's all. Why is it so? Because that's the way English is,

really. There's no reason to do that is also widely used in everyday English. In this sense, reason

is usually followed by the to-infinitive, why or for, as in:

There's no reason to do that.

There's no reason why you should do that.

It gives me all the more reason for working harder.

Once again, why is it so? Because that's how English works. No hard and fast rules here, unfortunately.

English grammar is therefore considered idiosyncratic and may be hard to master.

*Apples and oranges is an idiomatic expression there, of course.

Regards

"in" and "to" in these sentences ?

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