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Anonymous Posted 16 years ago
Grammar

Why no "to"

Hi,

I have a question about this form;

"All you have to do is push this button to listen to music"

or

"All you have to do is cook your wife dinner"

Why is there no 'to' after the be verb? ie why dont we say;

"All you have to do is to push this button to listen to music"
or
"All you have to do is to cook your wife dinner"

Any help would be great thanks. We are looking for a way to explain this relatively simply to Japanese high school students.

Thanks!
  

Top answer

"to" is more formal. In conversation people gravitate towars bare infinitive for the sake of efortlessness.

— Mieszko Powroznik

  • "to" is more formal.
  • In conversation people gravitate towars bare infinitive for the sake of efortlessness.
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5 Answers
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"to" is more formal. In conversation people gravitate towars bare infinitive for the sake of efortlessness.
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I find the version without "to" preferable in any context, whether formal or informal. I know the version with "to" is used, but I find it faintly illogical.

In "All you have to do is (to) push this button", I visualise "do" as momentarily substituting for "push", so as to ultimately make something with the sense "you have to push". Since we've already had one "to" in "to do", a second
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I have just made a google search for this one and found the following reply in one of other forums.

http://www.english-test.net/forum/ftopic36784.html

Mr Wordy was right as to the naturalness of the version with "to".
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Mieszko Powroznik
I have just made a google search for this one and found the following reply in one of other forums.

http://www.english-test.net/forum/ftopic36784.html

Mr Wordy was right as to the naturalness of the version with "to".

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Anonymous"All you have to do is cook your wife dinner"
Why is there no 'to' after the be verb?
Because it's optional in the construction known as a "pseudo-cleft with do". You can use to or you can leave it out.

See .

CJ
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