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I am writing my bachelor dissertation and several times Microsoft Word has corrected me from "to have" to "having". One of the sentences, for instance, goes like this:

The author recommends to have ‘(...)'. Bugeja further recommends having a student blog where prospective...

Can anyone enlighten me?

RegDwigнt
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Erika S
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  • @choster: Agreed - but unless I'm much mistaken, the answer there doesn't specifically mention *recommend* (which I personally think sounds dated/archaic with the infinitive, but inarguably both forms do occur). – FumbleFingers Dec 04 '13 at 01:37

1 Answers1

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Particular English verbs require particular kinds of grammatical structure for their objects.

If the person who is to take the action is expressed, Recommend takes either a that clause or an infinitive:

I recommend that you read this carefully.

I recommend you to read this carefully.

But if the person is not expressed, it takes a noun phrase with a gerund (-ing) form:

I recommend reading this carefully.

There is no point in looking for a reason for this: it just happens to be a fact about the word recommend in current English. (Require and advise have the same pattern; suggest is similar, but won't take the to form; want takes only the to form).

Community
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Colin Fine
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    Colin's explanation is quite clear. I agree with him. It is especially important to remember that recommend, suggest, advise and propose all function this way (like recommend+verb+ing), when they mean advise someone to do something. However, these words may mean others and such usage of gerund can be wrong. – Jiancheng Zou Dec 05 '13 at 01:59
  • #3 = -ing affix on “read” allows us to avoid “you” and ‘this’ gets more importance, highlighting content matter more than the action of ‘reading’.

    #1 ‘read this’ is the focus, and ‘that’ is subjunctive mood (only, more detectable in English when the verb need be inflected: “… that he read it carefully.” (verb, base form, and without S)

    #2, my least preferred, one needs an object (“you”) and then what follows is an “infinitive clause”, conveying purpose ( ∴ ‘to read’) when, really, the purpose is to understand what one is reading, not the reading itself.

     – Insider_English Apr 20 '23 at 05:17
  • I agree that I like #2 less than the others (but with advise it would be my preferred form). I don't agree that there is any difference in emphasis between #1 and #3; nor do I agree that the "to" clause in #2 is a purpose clause. – Colin Fine Apr 20 '23 at 13:28