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This sentence extracted from a book. I wonder whether 'ensure' has been used correctly here? Or as I guess it should be either 'ensuring' or 'to ensure'?

What promises do is ensure that callbacks are always handled in the same predictable manner, eliminating some of the nasty surprises and hard-to-find bugs you can get with callbacks alone.

Shahroq
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  • 'To ensure' here would be fine (compare 'To ensure that callbacks are always handled in the same predictable manner is what promises do), but less formally, 'ensure' is an acceptable deletion. – Edwin Ashworth Aug 08 '19 at 09:22
  • @EdwinAshworth Is there a reason you haven't posted that as an answer? – John Clifford Aug 08 '19 at 09:25
  • @John Clifford Two reasons. (1) I'm fairly sure that this is a duplicate, but a brief scan of search results for 'to-deletion + infinitive' has drawn a blank; (2) I estimate it would take me upwards of an hour to find a reference covering to-deletion. – Edwin Ashworth Aug 08 '19 at 09:28
  • I figured you'd be able to find references on eliding infinitives fairly easily, but I haven't looked myself so that's fair enough. ^_^ – John Clifford Aug 08 '19 at 09:29
  • Here's an in-house reference (though probably not a true duplicate), an answer by @J Lawler from a post essentially asking about Wh-clefts: ...... I want him to trim the hedge. = Wh-Cleft => What I want him to do is (to) trim the hedge. // And a more comprehensive one. //// 'Ensuring' isn't acceptable here in this Wh-cleft structure. – Edwin Ashworth Aug 08 '19 at 09:44

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