"He turned out an excellent actor
He turned out to be an excellent actor

Are both the sentences correct or only the first one?
Thanks"


That depends on your meaning. If you mean that the person unexpectedly became an excellent actor, than the second one is correct. The first sentence would mean that someone produced and excellent actor...someone like an acting coach.

It initialy seemed to me that elision of "be" selected the meaning "produce" (this phrasal verb has multiple meanings) as opposed to "unexpectedly become." Now, however, I can see how it doesn't have to. I would guess that most Americans would read the first "turn out" as "produce," particularly if comparing one to the other.

It depends on what is turning out, Mav-- some are surprising and others are not so surprising:

'My son spent five years in medical school and has turned out to be an outstanding physician' -- not too surprising, eh?

'My son spent five years and medical school and turned out to be a veterinarian' -- a bit more surprise here.

Nevertheless, 'turned out to be' tends to express a final outcome disjunct from its preliminaries, so there is some element of surprise for the listener, or at least of conclusiveness.



'He turned out an excellent actor.' -- the structure is not at all meaningless, but would perhaps be more apparent if I modified the sentence to read 'The Actors' Studio has consistently turned out great actors, like Lee J. Cobb and Marlon Brando'.

The Encarta Dictionary, for instance, presents 11 definitions, Mav, of which the present case is #6:

'turn out (v.)

1. switch light off: to make an electric light go out by operating its power switch

2. come to event: to assemble in a particular place, especially for a special event or public occasion

3. make somebody leave: to force somebody to leave a room, building, or residence

4. happen in particular way: to happen in a particular way, often in a way that was not expected

5. end up: to have a particular result

6. make something: to create or produce something, especially in a consistent way or by mass production

7. dress somebody up: to clothe yourself or somebody else in a particular way

8.military signal group to assemble: to call an organized group of people, usually soldiers, to assemble for duty or for a military parade

9. empty contents: to take out the contents of a pocket or bag, usually to check or reorganize what is there

10. fold outward: to be arranged so as to bend or point outward, or arrange something in this way

11. get up: to get out of bed (informal)'