[so as] not to

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Anonymous

#338774 Tue, 13 Mar 07 04:41 PM

I did it [so as] not to hurt her anymore

Can we skip [so as] ? Will the sentence be still correct ?

Thank you.

Anonymous

Yoong Liat

#338803 Tue, 13 Mar 07 06:01 PM

Anonymous wrote:
I did it [so as] not to hurt her anymore

Can we skip [so as] ? Will the sentence be still correct ?

Thank you.

I did it so as not to hurt her anymore ('so as' cannot be removed)

Yoong Liat

Joined on Mon, Sep 4 2006

Singapore

Veteran Member (6,006)

Yoong Liat

Marius Hancu

#338808 Tue, 13 Mar 07 06:11 PM

You need "so as."

An equivalent, IMO, is:

I did it to avoid hurting her anymore.

Marius Hancu

Joined on Wed, Apr 26 2006

Montreal, Canada

Veteran Member (11,673)

Yankee

#338842 Tue, 13 Mar 07 06:57 PM

Well, I certainly have heard that sort of construction used (without 'so as'), but I guess you'd most likely find it in more informal English. You'll also hear "I did it to not hurt her anymore."

From Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy:

"No, no, no! I merely did it not to be clipsed or colled, Marian."

Yankee

Joined on Sat, Apr 15 2006

Connecticut, USA

Senior Member (4,157)

Amy "You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." - Mark Twain

Constructions

Kooyeen

#338901 Tue, 13 Mar 07 10:14 PM

Hi everyone,

Yankee wrote:
You'll also hear "I did it to not hurt her anymore."

I asked here about a similar thing some time ago. I prefer the version I quoted to the version without the split infinitive. So it seems you can say all of these:

I did it not to hurt her anymore.
I did it to not hurt her anymore.
I did it so as not to hurt her anymore.
I did it so as to not hurt her anymore.

Better (and more common) versions don't need a negative infinitive. I'd say the following are far better:

I did it to avoid hurting her again.
I did it so that I wouldn't hurt her anymore.
I did it because I don't want to hurt her anymore (or "I did it because I didn't want to hurt her anymore").

Just my opinion, though Smile [:)]

Kooyeen

Joined on Thu, Dec 22 2005

Italy

Senior Member (3,972)

If you don't have a sense of humor already, it's about time you buy one.

Negatives

Yankee

#338922 Tue, 13 Mar 07 11:16 PM

Hi Kooyeen

Yes, there are a variety of ways to express the same thing and some are more common than others. Since the first two posters suggested that 'so as' cannot be omitted, my point was that the structure in the original question is in use.

Some grammars (usually the very prescriptive ones) tell you to never split inifinitives (never to split?), but infinitives get split on a pretty regular basis in real life. Smile [:)]

Here is a nice write-up on split infinitives from the American Heritage Dictionary.

Yankee

Cool Breeze

#338926 Tue, 13 Mar 07 11:25 PM

Yankee wrote:
Since the first two posters suggested that 'so as' cannot be omitted, my point was that the structure in the original question is in use.

Hi Yankee

I agree with you. An infinitive can express purpose (WHY?) on its own but it can be made more emphatic by adding either so as or in order:

I bought a dictionary [so as/in order] to learn English.

The infinitive can be made negative, preferably by putting not before it and that has no effect on so as or in order:

We left early for the airport [so as/in order] not to miss our flight.

Cheers
CB