"To best suit.." or "to suite best.." (that is the question)

Status
Not open for further replies.

MlleBlnie

New member
Joined
Dec 7, 2012
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
French
Home Country
France
Current Location
France
Hello,
I've written an english test but the teacher does not give precised feedbacks.
My sentence included "ot best suit" but it was underlined as a mistake.
The problem is that i've leant the expression this way, and i'd like to know which possibily is correct.
If someone could enlighten me please !
 

emsr2d2

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 28, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
Hello,
I've written an english test but the teacher does not give precised feedbacks.
My sentence included "ot best suit" but it was underlined as a mistake.
The problem is that i've leant the expression this way, and i'd like to know which possibily is correct.
If someone could enlighten me please !

If you wrote "ot best suit" (in your post) or "to suite best" (in your title), they will have been underlined as wrong because of the spelling.

If you wrote "to best suit" (correct spelling) then we need to know the complete sentence you wrote in order to work out the problem.
 

MlleBlnie

New member
Joined
Dec 7, 2012
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
French
Home Country
France
Current Location
France
Sorry i should have checked my message before sending.. (i just realised that I did the same for my username by the way)

The whole sentence was "[FONT=&quot]we have to change most of the product’s features in order to best suit the foreign purchasing triggers. [/FONT]"

thanks for replying and if you could explain to me the difference?
 

SoothingDave

VIP Member
Joined
Apr 17, 2009
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
American English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
Sorry i should have checked my message before sending.. (i just realised that I did the same for my username by the way)

The whole sentence was "we have to change most of the product’s features in order to best suit the foreign purchasing triggers. "

thanks for replying and if you could explain to me the difference?

It sounds fine to me. Your teacher probably marked you down for the "mistake" of splitting an infinitive.
 

MlleBlnie

New member
Joined
Dec 7, 2012
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
French
Home Country
France
Current Location
France
Thanks a lot !
Well, actually she drew an arrow to replace "best" after "suit". But I guess she just prefers "suit best" or she simply did not pay attention.

I did not get the "splitting infinitive" part however..:oops:
 

SoothingDave

VIP Member
Joined
Apr 17, 2009
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
American English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
You could ask your teacher why she did it. "Best suit" sounds better to me.

"To suit" is the infinitive form of the verb here. Some English teachers used to teach that you can not insert any words between the "to" and the "verb" when the infinitive is used. It's a bogus rule.
 

emsr2d2

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 28, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
"to best suit + noun" is definitely better than "to suit best + noun" in your sentence. I wondered if she had wanted you to put "to better suit" but that clearly wasn't it if she drew that arrow.
 

JarekSteliga

Member
Joined
Nov 30, 2011
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
Polish
Home Country
Poland
Current Location
Poland
NOT A TEACHER

I quite agree with SoothingDave that to boldly go and ask your teacher will be the surest and simplest way of finding out what your teacher's intention (or inattention :roll:) was.

/just another example of a split infinitive ;-)/
 

MlleBlnie

New member
Joined
Dec 7, 2012
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
French
Home Country
France
Current Location
France
I'll follow your advice and and summon up my courage to ash her next week.
To my opinion, in the context "best suit" fits better.

Thanks again for your concern !
 

emsr2d2

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 28, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
I'll follow your advice and and summon up my courage to [STRIKE]ash[/STRIKE] ask her next week.
[STRIKE]To[/STRIKE] In my opinion, in the context, "best suit" fits better.

Thanks again for your concern!

Note my amendments above. The misspelling of "ask" was clearly just an error, but again shows that you need to double check your posts before you submit them.
The phrase we use is "In my opinion".
Don't put a space before the punctuation mark at the end of a sentence.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top