I’m going to try and….

I’m going to try to explain my dislike of this construction. Whether or not it’s grammatically incorrect to write such sentences as “I’m going to try and go to the store to buy a few things” means very little to me. What means a great deal is giving the impression that I know what I’m saying when I write — that I am aware of how the words that I use not only fit together but also register my knowledge of what they mean. I believe that this requires me to forego the use of some lazily informal but very well-established patterns of speech, of which “try and” is possibly the one that I find most annoying in print.

There is nothing new about the locution in print. An example from a book on my nightstand: In her estimable study, A Life of One’s Own (1932), the British psychologist Marion Milner uses it often to explain her efforts to understand herself. Sometimes she switches, for no reason that I can see, to the usage that I prefer. I am sure that I could find earlier examples, but point here is to stress that I am not merely lambasting some recent depravity, as well as to suggest that time does not heal all solecisms.

Perversely, replacing the preposition (to) with the conjunction (and) works to disconnect the verb (try) not only from the infinitive (eg, go) but from the point of the sentence. Try bobs meaninglessly on the page. Try what?

To write about trying to do something is to express a certain possibly insincere humility. It often means that something is going to be attempted despite the blizzard of incompetence and stupidity that life obliges us to withstand. That, I think, explains the dangling, unmodified misuse of “going to try and…” “I am going to go to the store even though I may never get there, the world being what it is.”

A caveat the applies to the try… construction whether it is written properly or not: don’t use it in cases where subject of the sentence, generally you, speaking as “I,” are solely responsible for the results. It’s one thing to say, “I’m going to try to complete my degree program in four years.” No matter how hard you try, no matter how great your academic achievement, it’s not going to be up to you to present yourself with a diploma. It’s another, and rather silly, thing to say, “I’m going to try to do my best.” Whatever you do will be your best.

While I believe that writing ought to follow the rhythm of speech, and even sometimes surpass it (as Shakespeare does as a matter of course), I also believe that it mustn’t capitulate to the laxities of unthinking chit-chat.