Is it incorrect to use the phrase:
“I was planning on going to to concert.”
Can on be used like that, or must you say:
“I was planning to go to the concert.”
Since you are not physically or literally on top of the concert.
I use both forms myself. I don’t know whether one is considered more correct than the other. The main difference is in their construction:
I plan to go to the beach tomorrow i.e. verb *to plan * followed by the infinitive
I was planning on going to the beach yesterday, but it rained i.e. verb to plan, followed by on, followed by the present participle/gerund
Since the OP is about usage, the correct spelling is “grammar.”
Not that this is a definitive source, but on the new SAT using “planning on…” instead of “planning to…” is considered incorrect. I work for a company that teaches SAT prep courses, and the ‘sample test questions’ provided to us include questions like that. For what ever it’s worth, the error is apparently categorized as an “idiom error”.
Not that I want to argue with the Educational Testing Service about their ideas of proper idiomatic usage, but I see a clear distinction:
“Plan to” +infinitive is a statement of intent to take a specific action.
“Plan on” +gerund is a statement of intent to embark on a given program of actions. It’s also somewhat more informal, though I wouldn’t consider it totally incorrect in a given example of formal writing. But to me it carries a very clear assertion of undertaking an organized sequence of actions, as opposed to a single one.
Yes.
Phrasal verbs such as plan on are often informal ways to express something which in formal contexts would be expressed with a “normal” verb (often latinate, e.g., intend).
It’s not really a question of grammar, but rather register, or word choice.