When I was school (a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away) our
small, fierce and lovely matric English teacher (complete with
Scottish accent) drilled this into us: you never write “try and” – you
write “try to”.
An example:
George Lucas will try and make a new Star Wars movie (the wrong way)
or
George Lucas will try to make a new Stars Wars movie (the right way)
The grammatical reasons are lost in galactic time, but I have spent
many many years changing “and” to “to”. Be nice to a sub near you:
just write try to!
*Grammar Girl has this to say about it all, which might help in remembering
this one:
“I got really frustrated while researching this topic because none of
my books seemed willing to take a stand. They all said “try and” is an
accepted informal idiom that means “try to.” They say to avoid “try
and” in formal writing, but not to get too worked up about it
otherwise. But none of them addressed what bothers me about the phrase
“try and,” which is that if you use and, you are describing two
things: trying and making (as in the example above). When you use “try
to” you are using the preposition to to link the trying to the
making.”
First published on Grubstreet
