Recommend sb to do sth
Hello there. I have a question.
What do you think of the following sentence? --
I recommended Juan to come to Brazil.
Actually, I posted a question regarding how to use the verb "recommend" correctly about a year ago. At that time, I got some useful advice and learned that we should avoid using the "recommend sb to do sth" construction. It did make sense to me because there was an article in Longman Dictonary of Contemporary English (5th Edition):
Do not say ‘recommend (someone) to do something.' Say recommend doing something or recommend that someone (should) do something.
However, I noticed yesterday that there is no such article in LDOCE (6th Edition). On top of that, there is a description like this:
recommend sb to do sth
Students are recommended to make an appointment with a counselor.
Does this mean that the "recommend sb to do sth" construction is widely used in today's English and recognized as correct even among intellectuals?
Top answer
I'm surprised that dictionaries condone that pattern. To my ear it is still as wrong as it ever was.
- I'm surprised that dictionaries condone that pattern.
- To my ear it is still as wrong as it ever was.
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I'm surprised that dictionaries condone that pattern. To my ear it is still as wrong as it ever was.
0seagullDoes this mean that the "recommend sb to do sth" construction is widely used in today's English
No. According to Google's Ngrams the evolution of these constructions is in the opposite direction.
Until about the 1970s recommend sb to do sth was used much more often than recommend that sb do sth. Since then it's the reverse and c
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