Is it 'try and' or 'try to'? What does an epilogue do?

Try and versus try to

0:00Grammar Girl here. I'm Mignon Fogarty. This week, we'll talk about whether it's try-and or try-to, and then we'll look at what an epilogue is for. A longtime listener named Brian asked, why do we often use the phrase try-and when we mean try-to? Well, good question, Brian, and it's something that comes up a lot when I do radio interviews that take callers. Let's start with some background. Surprisingly,

0:32Merriam-Webster says try-and is likely the older way of saying it, and suggests the phrase comes from the test or examine meaning of the word try, as in to try your luck at something. That same meaning shows up in the phrase to try my patience, and when people say something is tried and true, as in it was tested and found to be true. It doesn't mean that any more when people say they're going to try and come to your party, but that may be how it started. For example, Merriam-Webster points to this early citation from 1574.

1:08I will adventure or try and seek my fortune. Now, as for why people do it, if I had to guess why people say try and instead of try to, I'd guess it's because it's easier to say. It just flows off your tongue better. I'm going to try and get up earlier versus I'm going to try to get up earlier. Just a little easier. And studies have found that try and does show up more often in speech than in writing. It's quite common to hear try and described as being or

1:41sounding more informal than try to, something that would be supported by the idea that it shows up more in speech than writing. And there's also a study showing that people use try and before shorter, simpler verbs, and try to before more Latinat words, both in speech and especially in writing. For example, saying you're going to try and get something or go somewhere is more common than saying you're going to try and measure something or organize something. And that's independent of

2:11how often the verbs show up in writing. So it's not just that people use get and go more often than they use measure and organize. A similar, it just sounds better theory comes from something linguists quite dramatically call or equi, using the Latin phrase, which is spelled like horror, which is just the tendency to avoid repetition, and which leads people to avoid something like using the word to twice in a sentence, like I'm going to try to get up earlier. Interestingly, there's also a regional

2:44difference here. Lynn Murphy says on her Separated by a Common Language blog that although a few older British style guides do recommend against it, try and isn't frowned upon these days in British English like it is in American English. Past podcast guest Sally Teglimonti also has a 2016 paper on the topic with Marissa Brook that says, try and is more common in British English than it used to be. In their study, the phrase was especially common among British people who were 45 or younger at the time

3:17of the study. And a couple of interesting tidbits from that paper are also that they found Canadian English is more like American English than British in this case, favoring try to. And they identified one phrase that is similar, be sure. We say both be sure to lock the door when you leave, and be sure and lock the door when you leave. So to sum up, try and can have an informal sound to it, and will annoy some people,

3:47especially in the United States. But most authorities consider it acceptable at some level, and it's not something I'd worry about at all if I were in the UK. Thanks for the question, Brian.

Using epilogues in essays

4:07This next segment is by Karen Lundy. Grammar Girl listener Mimi wrote in with this question. I was wondering if you've addressed the use of prologues and epilogues. I'm specifically interested in the inclusion of an epilogue for a single essay in a collection of essays and poems. It doesn't appear to be a common practice, but is it a valid opportunity to tell the reader what came afterward? Well, thanks for the question, Mimi. An epilogue can absolutely belong to a single essay inside a

4:40collection. There are no hard and fast editorial rules. Merriam-Webster defines epilogue pretty broadly as a concluding section that rounds out the design of a literary work. And the Chicago Manual of Style, in its list of divisions and parts of a book, names the epilogue or afterword as a part of the main text rather than the back matter, which includes things like acknowledgments, appendices, and glossaries. It lists the epilogue as following the conclusion, so a part of the story itself. If you were an editor,

5:14your real question probably wouldn't be, can I include this epilogue even if it belongs to only one essay in the collection, but rather, is this epilogue an important final piece that helps complete the essay? So what does an epilogue do? Well, basically it tells the reader that the main piece has ended, but the story still has a little more to say. It could be about things like later events, an aftermath, or maybe a final perspective the original essay didn't arrive at. The word epilogue

5:48comes from Greek roots. It means words attached at the end. And Merriam-Webster points us toward an older meaning. An epilogue could also be a speech at the end of a play. Think of Robin's words at the end of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, which begin, If we shadows have offended, think but this, and all is mended. That history gives epilogue its in-between quality. The main action is over, but the work itself isn't quite finished speaking.

6:21And then there's author Anne Patchett. Her 2021 collection, These Precious Days, uses an epilogue in exactly the way Mimi suggested. It gives us later events and an ending for the title essay. That essay follows Patchett's friendship with Sookie Raphael during Raphael's cancer treatment in the early days of the pandemic. The epilogue, A Day at the Beach, returns to Raphael's story after the events of the essay, recounts farewells and her death, and then closes the collection. The epilogue does two jobs

6:54without becoming confusing. It completes the essay's unfinished story and gives the collection an emotional ending. So that rare editorial unicorn is real, and it even has an ISBN. Finally, it's worth looking at the different types of labels we see at the end of books. Once again, there are no strict rules and definitions can overlap, so think of them more as editorial signals. Epilogues tend to tell us that a story continues after the apparent ending, with something satisfying

7:28to wrap it up, such as later events or a final scene. And then there's the afterword, that's spelled A-F-T-E-R-W-O-R-D, literally the words that come after. It's different from the adverb afterward ending in W-A-R-D, which means later. Afterwards tend to feature the writers stepping back to discuss the work and add some context, explanation, reflection, or some sort of later assessment. The postscript or addendum is a sort of compact update that's appended to a work.

8:03Think corrections or a brief new factual development. A coda, also used in music, is a closing movement that echoes the work. It's usually some kind of brief lyrical or resonant ending. And here's something fun. Coda is Italian for tale. So there you go, Mimi. Yes, an epilogue for one essay is a valid way to end a collection when it connects later events to the essay's story. It works best with a heading that makes it clear which essay it belongs to.

8:33It could go immediately after the essay or at the end of the collection. That's a style choice. But if the new material comments on the essay instead of continuing this story, then afterward would be the clearer label. And a short factual update? That's a postscript or an addendum. Thanks for the question. That segment was by Karen Lundy, a career writer and editor. She writes, I'll go first, a newsletter where she shares her story, then hands you a writing prompt and a metaphorical pen. Find her on igofirst.org.

Family words and credits

9:09Finally, I have a familect from Sean. Hey, Grandma Girl. My name is Sean. I'm calling to Ventura, California. My family invented a phrase for things like coffee cake and pastries, etc. When we were watching a Simpsons episode, when Slanders was saying, singing to his kids, God said to Noah to build him an arki-arki. So all pastries, coffee cake, etc. are called arki-arki in our family. Thanks, Sean. If you want to share your familect, you can leave a message on the voicemail line or

9:40record it on your phone or computer using SpeakPipe. And the phone number for the voicemail and link for SpeakPipe are in the show notes. Let's hear your stories. Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast. Thanks to Nat Hoops, Morgan Christensen, Rebecca Sebastian, Stephen Schepanski, Holly Hutchings, Dan Feyerabend, and Maram El-Nagib, who has lived on three different continents. And I'm Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl. That's all. Thanks for listening. And don't forget to like and subscribe.