A)"all he could do was stare at the wall" OR, B) "was to stare"? WHY? A friend and I are disagreeing on the following to sentence structures. "All he could was stare at the wall" or "All he could do w

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Ziggy

A)"all he could do was stare at the wall" OR, B) "was to stare"? WHY? A friend and I are disagreeing on the following to sentence structures. "All he could was stare at the wall" or "All he could do was to stare at the wall". I say it is the first , I am quite confident that I am correct but you could please help me to explain why?

9 nov. 2014 08:30

Réponses · 5

I would say : "All he could do was stare at the wall" You could also add "to" before stare but it sounds a bit more natural to say the sentence without "to" You need "do" after "could" in your expression because modals are always used with main verbs, except when answering a question briefly in the affirmative or negative e.g. "Yes I can" I can't explain why you can say "stare" and "to stare" and why the first sounds more natural. One day I hope I will be able to explain this!

9 novembre 2014