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Comment by onionisafruit | Hacker News Reader

You can also interpret the Dr Dre quote an abbreviation of, “I’m gonna try (to change the course of hip hop again) and change the course of hip hop again.”

In this form “try and” means you will try to do something and that you will succeed. Some of the articles tests make more sense in this light; Of course you wouldn’t reorder the trying and the succeeding because that’s the order the events will happen.

This ignores the fact that “try and” developed concurrently with “try to” and possibly before. So it wasn’t originally an abbreviation for a phrase that was yet to be established.

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"I have tried and finished my homework" is correct to my ear (possibly because I'm Canadian), but it means successful completion as opposed to "I have tried to finish my homework" implying I didn't get around to it.

That's not what "try and" means though. It's perfectly fine to say "I'm gonna try and fix this" when you don't know if you can fix it.

(Source: I say that shit all the time).

I would only say "try and" if I thought it was likely that I'd at least make some progress towards the goal.

If I expected failure, I'd instead say "try to" fix it.

Maybe, but even if true, it's still very clearly different from what the parent said.

To me, "I"m gonna try and fix it before I buy a new one, but that's probably what I'm gonna have to do" is a fine sentence.

For me, if someone says "try and see for yourself", it implies possibility of failure or something new.

If outcome is considered in terms of success or failure then try implies non-zero probability of failure. If outcome isn't considered in terms of success or failure then "try this flavour of ice-cream" is experience and try this outfit(fits or doesn't) is a test you can't fail. Philosophically, it is as master Yoda said: Do or do not, there is no try.

That sounds horrible to me. I’m going to try to fix it.

Then there's people like me who use the popular contraction for the first three words: "Ima try and fix this."

A contraction containing another contraction, in fact.

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