What if "with" is omitted? Is it incorrect?

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"Mr. Jones procrastinated with his fund request and missed the deadline."Q. What if "with" is omitted? Is it incorrect?

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

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"Mr. Jones procrastinated with his fund request and missed the deadline."
Q. What if "with" is omitted? Is it incorrect?

Yes, it is incorrect from the viewpoint of current usage.

The use of 'procrastinate' as a transitive verb is clearly dying out. There are only a few sporadic cases of it after 1920. Not all dictionaries even list the transitive use anymore.

According to the data I found on the Google Ngram Viewer, a few of the most used objects of 'procrastinate' are as follows, with the dates they were used.

Usage ................................. Year last used*............ Sporadic Uses

procrastinate time .....................1921
procrastinate action ..................1916 ........................1960,1963
procrastinate payment ............1906
procrastinate litigation ............1935 ........................1972,1985

*Latest year found in the examples shown in a Google Ngram Viewer search, except as shown in the "Sporadic Uses" column.

CJ

What if "with" is omitted? Is it incorrect?

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