# Correct my English, win a prize! **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 24, 2002, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correct-my-english-win-a-prize/133669 "2002-10-24T12:39:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![enid666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7feea3/32.png) [@enid666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enid666)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correct-my-english-win-a-prize/133669/1 "2002-10-24T12:39:11Z")
Oh, I was lying, I don’t have a prize. My gratitude will have to do. Please help me argue a linguistic matter. I recently wrote a paper for a fancy professor at one of our fancier American universities in which I stated, “The child tasks at developing a more sophisticated relationship to…” , and the professor objected to the use of “tasks at”. My argument, young as it is, goes like this: We can _play at_ something. We can _try at_something. “Task” in the dictionary, is a transitive verb, meaning that one can say “He tasks his son with lawn care every week.” I can even remember hearing, “He tasks away at something.” So, why does he think I am wrong? So: votes? Can you task at something? Why? Why not? Task away! ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correct-my-english-win-a-prize/133669/2 "2002-10-24T12:59:01Z")
[“Task” in the dictionary, is a transitive verb, meaning that one can say “He tasks his son with lawn care every week.” I can even remember hearing, “He tasks away at something.” So, why does he think I am wrong? \*\* [/QUOTE] Not in my dictionary, I’m afraid: it is a noun. Admittedly, I am in the U.K. and therefore possibly odd from a U.S.A. point of view, but it really does sound terrible to me. Sorry. 🙂 Why can’t the hypothetical person set his son the task of mowing the lawn every week? Ah well, it will be interesting to see what others say. Nothing personal, but I do _hope_ that it has not somehow become a verb, transitive or intransitive. I wanted a prize though! sulk sulk sulk 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correct-my-english-win-a-prize/133669/3 "2002-10-24T13:00:12Z")
Yes, you can task something but ‘task at’ is not adressed directly. Most rules of writing forbid things, and I’ve not seen ‘task at’ as a forbidden or not recommended…so by default it might be ok. Task your keyboard or mouse and see this link. [http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=task](http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=task) ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correct-my-english-win-a-prize/133669/4 "2002-10-24T13:01:25Z")
I don’t believe you can. Two reasons: 1st - “to task” is not a verb that one can simply do. It has to be imposed (don’t know the correct grammatical term). 1. You can task someone _with_, but someone can’t task _at_ something. This is because it’s a compound verb - a verb that is used with a preposition. Think “lay off” for making someone redundant. You wouldn’t say “lay at” or “lay out” because that just isn’t the phrase. Usually, compound verbs take the same preposition all the time. Anyone care to correct me? ---
**Author:** ![GregAtlanta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/eb9ed0/32.png) [@GregAtlanta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GregAtlanta)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correct-my-english-win-a-prize/133669/5 "2002-10-24T13:04:31Z")
Can’t come down on your side. At best, you’d be technically correct but still very unclear, awkward, and pretentious-sounding. But I don’ t think it even reaches that level because I don’t think you can use ‘task’ that way. As you mention, ‘task’ can be a transitive verb in which you task someone else to do something, meaning to assign or to request, or to order. But that definition doesn’t work in your example, and I’ve never heard it used in the way you want to use it. And like I said, even if it were technically correct, the prof still was right to mark it as unclear. ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correct-my-english-win-a-prize/133669/6 "2002-10-24T13:10:54Z")
Over and above my not liking the use of “task” as a verb (my dictionary refers to it as “a non-standard usage”, since your dictionary refers to it as a “transitive verb”, your usage is incorrect. A transitive verb demands a direct object, and you don’t have one in that sentence. You follow it with a prepositional phrase with a gerund as the object of the preposition but I see no direct object. By the rules of grammar, I’m afraid your professor is correct. (and yes, I know I began that whole thing with a dangling participle - I’m sorry, I’m just getting home this morning after putting the paper to bed) TV ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correct-my-english-win-a-prize/133669/7 "2002-10-24T13:14:57Z")
Sorry, enid (and this isn’t just because you reneged on the prize {pout}); one may task someone with something to do; however, one may not task at something. Yet another instance of semantics interefering with the “letter of the law” of Grammar. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correct-my-english-win-a-prize/133669/8 "2002-10-24T13:19:22Z")
In my experience, the “to task with” construction is more commonly used passively, as in “The message board has been tasked with the eradication of public ignorance”. I certainly wouldn’t call it an everyday usage though - it has an air of government-speak about it. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correct-my-english-win-a-prize/133669/9 "2002-10-24T13:37:38Z")
In Hiberno-English (FWIW) “task” is _never_ a verb. I don’t think we’d even recognise it as an Americanism. Also we can’t “try at” something; we can just try it. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correct-my-english-win-a-prize/133669/10 "2002-10-24T13:54:33Z")
Save this thread. In ten years, if you’re anything like most people I went to college with, you’ll read it and wonder how obnoxiously egocentric you were to prefer wasting your own time (second-guessing your professor and trying to prove how right you were) to simply tasking yourself with absorbing what he/she had to say about your diction. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correct-my-english-win-a-prize/133669/11 "2002-10-24T14:02:23Z")
Hmm, my (British) dictionary lists two meanings for “task” as a verb, and doesn’t say anything about them being Americanisms: > [@](#): > > **task** … _vb (tr)_ **5** to assign a task to. **6** to subject to severe strain; tax. Interesting that it comes from the same root (Latin _taxare_ as “tax”). ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correct-my-english-win-a-prize/133669/12 "2002-10-24T14:02:59Z")
I have a great Dilbert cartoon in which the PHB tells Anne. L. Retentive he’s going to “task” her “with a deliverable.” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![El\_Zagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correct-my-english-win-a-prize/133669/13 "2002-10-24T14:58:09Z")
I don’t know if it is technically right or wrong, but it sure is awkward. It was a real task for me to figure out what you were saying. I had to task at understanding it by reading it over a couple of times. Why don’t you just say "“The child _works_ at developing a more sophisticated relationship to…” or if you want to be more emphatic "“The child _strives to develop_ a more sophisticated relationship to…” ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_Wright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Steve\_Wright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_Wright)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correct-my-english-win-a-prize/133669/14 "2002-10-24T16:05:36Z")
[Ricardo Montalban overacting] “He tasks me! He tasks me, and I’ll have him” [/Ricardo Montalban overacting] I think this is sense 6 in **r\_k** ’s dictionary. “Task” in the fifth sense is something I’ve always associated with the worst kind of management-speak. “Steve has been tasked with the code redevelopment” translates, to me, as “I’ve told Steve to fix the code, but I’m practicing a touchy-feely management style where I don’t do anything so crass as _tell_ people to do things, so I’m going to pretend the job has sort of materialized out of thin air around him”. Dictionaries may allow it, but it’s ugly, ugly. Moreover, it means to _give_ someone a task, not to do it oneself. I suppose that’s why management like it. “Tasks at”? Ugh. A neologism which has sprung full-formed from **enid666** ’s brow like Athena from the head of Zeus. If I were you, **enid** I’d try and shove it back in. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_Wright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Steve\_Wright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_Wright)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correct-my-english-win-a-prize/133669/15 "2002-10-24T16:11:24Z")
[Ricardo Montalban overacting] “He tasks me! He tasks me, and I’ll have him” [/Ricardo Montalban overacting] I think this is sense 6 in **r\_k** ’s dictionary. “Task” in the fifth sense is something I’ve always associated with the worst kind of management-speak. “Steve has been tasked with the code redevelopment” translates, to me, as “I’ve told Steve to fix the code, but I’m practicing a touchy-feely management style where I don’t do anything so crass as _tell_ people to do things, so I’m going to pretend the job has sort of materialized out of thin air around him”. Dictionaries may allow it, but it’s ugly, ugly. Moreover, it means to _give_ someone a task, not to do it oneself. I suppose that’s why management like it. “Tasks at”? Ugh. A neologism which has sprung full-formed from **enid666** ’s brow like Athena from the head of Zeus. If I were you, **enid** I’d try and shove it back in. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correct-my-english-win-a-prize/133669/16 "2002-10-24T16:59:39Z")
Please!! Let’s be nice and welcome **enid666** to the Board with her(?) first post. BTW notwithstanding **r\_k** ’s dictionary entry, I classify using _task_ as a verb along with “This morning I had to _status_ my boss on my project.” Marketing types who use _creative_ as a noun (“We’ll do the focus groups, then Josephine will come in to do the creative.”) as well as turning nouns into verbs by appending “ize”. That is, abominations used in American business. Anyway, with regard to OP, even with liberal usage of the word task you can’t “task at” something since there is no meaning available as a synonym for “perform a task”. ---
**Author:** ![hazel-rah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/73ab20/32.png) [@hazel-rah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hazel-rah)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correct-my-english-win-a-prize/133669/17 "2002-10-24T17:06:41Z")
There’s nothing about it that contradicts any rules of English grammar. As the OP noted, we have plenty of similar verb + preposition constructions, and English has a grand tradition of not making a big deal out of the noun/verb distinction. Your key error is trying to argue it as a linguistic matter when it’s a question of style. College papers are not the place for neologisms. What is wrong with substituting “works at?” -fh ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correct-my-english-win-a-prize/133669/18 "2002-10-24T23:11:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by hazel-rah \* > **There’s nothing about it that contradicts any rules of English grammar.** I hate to be repetitive, but if it is a transitive verb, it must have a direct object and there is no direct object in the sentence, so yes, it does contradict at least one rule of English grammar. TV ---
**Author:** ![jackelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correct-my-english-win-a-prize/133669/19 "2002-10-24T23:59:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by TV time \* > \*\*I hate to be repetitive, but if it is a transitive verb, it must have a direct object and there is no direct object in the sentence, so yes, it does contradict at least one rule of English grammar. > > TV \*\* Serious nit-picking here: A transitive verb _can_ be accompanied by a direct object, but does not _have_ to be. It is distinguished from intransitive verbs, which cannot accept direct objects. Examples: Transitive: To serve. “I serve food,” but “I serve tonight.” (In which “tonight” is an adverb modifying _serve_, but there is no object at all.) Intransitive: To sleep. “I sleep,” but not “I sleep her.” “I sleep _with_ her” is perfectly acceptable (even to be desired, in my personal view 😃 ), but that’s because _with_ makes _her_ an indirect object. As for the OP, I find the construction _to task at_ fairly mystifying. I’ve never come across it before, and when I read it my eyes and brain stumbled over it and it totally distracted me from the meaning of the sentence, and I had to back up and re-read to figure out what it was supposed to mean. And that’s why you shouldn’t use it. ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2002, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correct-my-english-win-a-prize/133669/20 "2002-10-25T00:30:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jackelope \* > \*\* > > Serious nit-picking here: > > A transitive verb _can_ be accompanied by a direct object, but does not _have_ to be. It is distinguished from intransitive verbs, which cannot accept direct objects. > \*\* If it has a direct object, then it’s behaving as a transitive verb; if there is no object, then it’s behaving as an intransitive verb. Isn’t this right? Someone skewer me for being wrong. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/correct-my-english-win-a-prize/133669.md?page=2)