Oh, I certainly agree with your last sentence. All I’m saying is that the construction “[verb] and [verb] it” is a grammatical one in English. “Try and do it” can be parsed as “try it and do it.” A better example would be “taste and eat it,” which means “taste it and eat it” or “tune and play it,” which means “tune it and play it.” So the form is not an invalid one. It’s not what “try and do” really means, but there is nothing objectionable about the form, in my opinion. You’d more likely see it in a construct like “try and you’ll do it” rather than “try and do it,” but it doesn’t mean the latter form is technically ungrammatical.
Once again, I am arguing about the form and grammar of the phrase, not the idiomatic meaning.
My phone autocorrect heavily favors the contracted form without any context awareness, so if I let it have its way my text ends up littered with unnecessary apostrophes.
Well, we sure beat that question into the ground. FWIW, I agree the two expressions are both correct and there is no discernible difference in their meaning.
I think there is a distinction between “try and do it” and try to do it" as illustrated above.
I recall conversations with my parents and grandparents about intensions.
GF: “Are you going to do xxxx”
PT: “I’ll try”
GF: “No, try and do it.”
Although they are often equivalent, I would suggest “try and” might have more of an underlying note of “I don’t think you will be able to do that”. Might be context and place dependent, though.
They both have the same meaning. “Try and” is more informal and shouldn’t be used in formal writing, like for a college essay (purely because it’s a marker of informal language), but it’s perfectly fine in informal contexts.
In speech it is try n’, but that’s because and is usually elided like that in speech when it’s between two other words.
It’s not very good though. They mix up Victorian and post-Victorian examples where it actually is the same meaning of “try and do something” we see these days, with older examples where “try” could easily be interpreted to mean “test,” or “prove.” That’s how the word try was almost always used in the 16th and 17th centuries, so it seems unlikely that it was the idiomatic prepositional verb “try and.”
(I know “and” isn’t a preposition, but it’s used like one here, which is why it sounds wrong to a lot of people).
The Victorian examples are good, especially since Thackeray was a popular writer who was known for writing in relatively common parlance, even though it doesn’t look like it today.
The article I linked above says that the “try and” idiom probably originated from the “test/prove” meaning of “try”, as in “try one’s patience”.
There are sentences where the literal words “try and” don’t have the same meaning as “try to” but these are not really parsed the same way as the usual “try and” idiom:
You try and fail to do good work.
You try to fail to do good work.
Yes, but the earliest two examples of try and in the MW article parse more like two separate verbs connected by and, rather than a different way of saying “try to.” If those examples have the “test” meaning, which I suspect, you’d stress them differently when you said them aloud.
To me it sounds like prove. “Try” just wasn’t really used in the same way then as it is now. If the OED says it might be “attempt,” then actually that would sound a little weirder (attempt their love?).
There’s no link so I don’t know what the OED actually said, but even the link doesn’t say that the OED is citing this as the earliest use of “try and” - it happens to be (apparently) their first example of the word “try” used to mean “attempt,” and it is followed by and.
Also I’d personally be wary of using such an obscure text, by, J.S., as singular proof of anything regarding language because it could easily be a simple printing error. & and to had had their own blocks rather than printing each letter. Obscure texts, possibly vanity printing, probably had few proofreaders.
One example among many, sure, but the only one? Nah.
I don’t have any objections at all to the idea that try and is as old as try to, but I do object to badly-sourced, er, sources.
The full title of that book, FWIW, is:
The History of Monastical Conventions, and Military Institutions: With a Survey of the Court of Rome. Or, A Description of the Religious and Military Orders in Europe, Asia and Africa, for Above Twelve Hundred Years: Together with a Survey of the Court of Rome, & C, with Many Other Things Worthy of Note, According to what Has Been Recorded by Candid Authors of Divers Nations, and Faithfully Collected.
The OED says it means ‘attempt’, so it’s the same as modern usage, ‘attempt to express their love’:
16.b Followed by and and a co-ordinated verb (instead of to with inf.) expressing the action attempted. colloq. Cf. and B. 10.
1686 J. S[ergeant] Hist. Monast. Convent 9 They try and express their love to God by their thankfulness to him. 1802H. Martin Helen of Glenross II. 143 Frances retired, to try and procure a little rest. 1819, 1878 [see and B. 10]. 1855 in Coleridge Mem. Keble (1869) II. 425, I have something to write to you on that matter, which I shall try and put on another piece of paper. 1883 L. Oliphant Altiora Peto I. 251 He had good reason to think that Sark was likely to try and back out.
[They were enjoyned…] 70. That the Eucharist be received with Reverence, Fear, and Faith. 71. That they observe when it is convenient to speak, and when to be silent. 72. That they have ever the the fear of God before their Eyes, shun∣ing the broad way, and chusing the nar∣row. 73. That they avoid Covetousness and Vain-glory, as also Gayety in apparel. 74. That they abstain from the defile∣ment of the flesh, and endeavour to be pure in heart. 75. That they hate sin, and make Gods Law their delight. 76. That they try and express their love to God by their thankfulness to him, their obedience to his Commandments, their love to their Neighbour, in prosperity and adversity. 77. That they should imi∣tate Christ in loving their enemies. 78. That they should be angry, but not so as to sin, and suffer without resistance, or fly from the persecution. 79. That they labour for the peace of Conscience. 80. That none be puffed up with a con∣ceit of his own worth, brag thereof, or glory therein. 81. That they implore true Wisdom of God, acknowledging him the Author of all good.
The online etymology dictionary appears to support this sense as the dominant historical use:
c. 1300, “examine judiciously, discover by evaluation, test;” mid-14c., “sit in judgment of,” also “attempt to do,” from Anglo-French trier (13c.), from Old French trier “to pick out, cull” (12c.), from Gallo-Roman *triare, of unknown origin. The ground sense is “separate out (the good) by examination.” Sense of “subject to some strain” (of patience, endurance, etc.) is recorded from 1530s.
Hence we have the legal sense of “to try” as in “to put on trial”, as well as the sense of “these things were sent to try us”. And undoubtedly also the root of “triage”.
That’s a great point which invalidates any claim that “try and do” predates “try to do”. It didn’t mean the same thing.
That was the original meaning of the phrase 700 years ago: test and evaluate, and if found feasible, try to do it. But that’s not what it means today. “Try” and “do it” are not two distinct activities – the phrase simply means “make an attempt”, so in proper usage a conjunction has no business being between the two parts.
