112 CHAPTER 3. MORE GRAMMAR
repercussions, like when you finally can’t stand it anymore and tell your
boss outright that everyone in the department is beĴer suited for his job
than he is.
”(I) broke the radio... (and that’s something I wish I hadn’t).”In this line, it should be obvious why the fact that – to break- having been completed, is a bad thing.
Colloquially, + can be contracted into or ,
(with + contracting to or respectively) resulting, for
instance, in:
”Ah! I forgot my textbook...”Again, it is clear that , ”forget”, is a bad or regreĴable thing
when completed, especially in relation to needing your textbook in class.
Special conjunctions:
Also important is the + construction. On its own, the verb
means
”to put [something] [somewhere]”, but when paired with a verb in form,
it creates a construction meaning ”to do something with the intention of
leaving it that way [for whatever reason]”. This may sound a bit cryptic,
so let’s look at an example for clarification:
”Please turn on the lights.”This sentence uses the form of for a polite command (us-
ing ), and asks for the lights to be turned on without there being
a need for them to be on right now, other than it saving having to turn
them on later. Literally this sentence would read ”Please turn on the lights
and leave them that way”. Colloquially, the combination of + is often
changed to instead, so the following two sentences are the same, except
that the first is more formal, and the second more colloquial:
”(I)’ll open the windows (now, rather than having to do it later when
it becomes genuinely necessary).”