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Comment by Sardtok | Hacker News Reader

It's kind of funny that in Norwegian, people mix up the infinitive "to" and "and", as they are pronounced the same, "o" in IPA. So we have the same thing in Norwegian writing, but if you happen to use "and", you must use the imperative form of the verb for it to be grammatically correct. So, "try to stop me" is "prøv å stoppe meg", and "try and stop me" is "prøv og stopp meg". The latter is much more colloquial.

This isn't a problem in Swedish and Danish, as their infinitive marker is "att/at", which in Norwegian only means "that" in its conjunctive form.

I wonder if there's any relation to the Norwegian here.

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Actually, the situation is even weirder in Swedish! Even though we write "att", it is pronounced "o" when used to mark an infinitive but not when used like the word "that" in English. So, in the sentence

  Jag tror *att* han gillar *att* äta
  I think *that* he likes *to* eat

the first "att" (that) is pronounced similar to its orthography but the second one (to) is pronounced "o".

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/att#Swedish

Professor Faarlund might agree

> In his 2014 paper "English: The Language of the Vikings" (co-authored by Joseph Embley Emonds), Faarlund and Emonds assert that English is a Scandinavian language (or North Germanic language) which was influenced by Anglo-Saxon (a West Germanic language) [1]

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Terje_Faarlund

And in that case, "try and" is potentially very old and very "correct" English.

I don't disagree but I don't follow what you mean in response to Faarlund's theory?

He may be referring to what I suspect too, that even though it is unlikely that any one Germanic language has the key to this, let alone the many similar linguistic mysteries, deeply diving into each of the languages to graph connections will likely provide the best chance at solving such things.

I believe that not only do we have a hard time with this matter because our conception of what “try” means today is not original, but also that effectively “try and” and “try to” are effectively different concepts of the mind that we simply do not understand anymore, homographs whose separate original meanings and appropriate uses have been lost over time.

I look forward to what LLMs will be able to unlock with this kind of historical and linguistic analysis. I think we will start unlocking some interesting this this way. I could see us being able to, to some degree, rewind linguistic history and also then apply it to historical context. Imagine an LLM that can not only graph all languages and meanings in those languages, but will also be able to infer meanings and origins going back into history by cross referencing all related languages … at least with some degree of accuracy greater than what we can do today. Now we just need all historical texts in digital form and to not erase all life on the planet.

"Try and" has a very Norse/Scandinavian/Swedish feel to it.

Aha yes thank you for explaining. I agree!

And it makes a lot more sense when you realize "prøv" means trial/test. "Attempt this feat of bravery and stop me". It's a diss/brag, depending on whether it's aimed at others or self.

"In this quest I shall be victorious and wash the dog" = "I'll try and wash the dog"

First thing I thought of when reading the linked post! You explained it for a non-Norwegian audience better than I could have too!

I think "try and stop me" is more colloquial in my brand of English too.

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