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Can someone explain how this works ? Is this passive ?

He was to get an ice cream or

He was to have done something

I am to do that . Is this wrong ? How can we change these sentences without losing the meaning.

Is this present tense?

James Webster
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Mrko
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  • FYI: passive voice is where the object of a sentence appears as the subject with a passive voice: The ice cream was eaten by the man. – James Webster Nov 23 '13 at 09:23
  • Please visit the sister site for English Language Learners at [ell.se] – Kris Nov 23 '13 at 12:12
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    Try introducing supposed/ meant before the infinitive to help you see 'how it works'. – Kris Nov 23 '13 at 12:14

2 Answers2

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Is (or are), followed by to and a verb is one of the ways English has of talking about the future. So we can say ‘He is to visit New York next year’ as an alternative, but with a different emphasis, to ‘He is going to visit New York next year’ or ‘He will visit New York next year’.

When be is in the past tense, it normally describes an event that should be taking place, but won't. ‘He was to visit New York next year’ suggests that his trip was planned, but something has happened to frustrate it. In referring to a past event that failed to take place, we keep the past tense of be, but change the infinitive to the perfect infinitive, so we get a sentence like ‘He was to have visited New York last year’.

These are rather formal constructions, and for that reason it is unlikely that your example ‘He was to get an ice cream’ would occur very often. The circumstances would probably require something like ‘He was going to get an ice cream (but he changed his mind)’.

Barrie England
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The sentences as they stand are perfectly correct grammar. But if it makes you feel better you can insert the word 'going' before the 'to' in each of them. The last one is present tense, the first two are in the past.

Without the 'going' it becomes a more formal register, and vaguely suggests that permission may have had to be granted or some hurdle crossed before it could happen.

But note the comments of Barrie England, above, which are relevant.

WS2
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