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Nospace Posted 12 years ago
Grammar

To be or being?

I'm getting confused by this quote I found on internet.

"Sometimes I pretend to be normal, but it gets boring.
So, I go back to being me."

Why is it "to being me" and not "to be me"?
The first sentence uses "to be normal" instead.

Can someone explain it? Thanks a lot Emotion: smile
  

Top answer

It's just down to the way the two verbs/phrases work. "pretend", in the relevant sense, is followed by a to-infinitive: "I pretend to be normal", "He pretends to like opera", "I pretended to agree ", etc. "go back to", in the relevant sense, is followed by a noun or noun phrase, "I go back to being me ", "I went back to my house ", etc.

— GPY

  • It's just down to the way the two verbs/phrases work.
  • "pretend", in the relevant sense, is followed by a to-infinitive: "I pretend to be normal", "He pretends to like opera", "I pretended to agree ", etc.
  • "go back to", in the relevant sense, is followed by a noun or noun phrase, "I go back to being me ", "I went back to my house ", etc.
  • (obviously the second is a more literal use of "go back").
  • "go back" followed by a to-infinitive has a different sense of going back in order to do something; for example, "I went back to check that I had locked the door".
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4 Answers
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It's just down to the way the two verbs/phrases work.

"pretend", in the relevant sense, is followed by a to-infinitive: "I pretend to be normal", "He pretends to like opera", "I pretended to agree", etc.

"go back to", in the relevant sense, is followed by a noun or noun phrase, "I go back to being me", "I went back to my house", etc. (obviously
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Pretend is a verb that takes a to-infinitival complement and not a to-PP.
The preposition back takes a to-PP complement, not a to-infinitival. Prepositions don’t normally take infinitival complements.
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nospaceto be normal
Here "to" is part of an infinitive structure (to be).
nospaceI go back to being me
Here "to" is a preposition. The -ing form of a verb (being in this case) is used after a preposition.
______________

These examples illustrate two different uses of "to".
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Let me try answering the question without resorting to grammar.
The reason why it's "to being me" is that my going back has a destination, which in the present case is the state of being me. If you say "I go back to be me", then my going back has no destination because "to be me" cannot mean a destination but possibly a purpose. Therefore, if you say "I go back to be me", it means "I go back (
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