he caught many young men to fight for him

[diamondcutter]

The king wanted to extend his territory so he caught many young men to fight for him.

This sentence was written by me and I’d like to know if it makes sense to your native speakers’ ears.

 

[emsr2d2]

The king wanted to extend his territory so he caught many young men to fight for him.

I wrote this sentence was written by me and I’d like to know if it makes sense. to your native speakers’ ears.

I can work out what you mean but "caught" isn't the right word. I'd use "enlisted".

 

[Skrej]

It's grammatical, and understandable, but it suggests that the young men were forced to fight for him, like a slave army. He captured them first and then made them serve in his own army. ''Captured' also opens up the possibility that the men weren't necessarily from his own kingdom.

A better word choice might be 'conscripted' or 'forced' (if the service was involuntary), or 'enlisted' as emsr suggested (if the service was voluntary).

edit: Also, for involuntary service, especially for non-nationals, is 'impressed (verb entry #2 definitions 1-2)' although I dont' think that term is in common use nowadays.

 

[SoothingDave]

"Captured" was the first word I thought of. "Conscripted" is also good.

"Shanghaied" is certainly no longer politically correct, but it referred to drugging or otherwise forcing men into service on naval vessels. Which led me to "impressment" which is a more formal name for the practice. The impressment of Americans into service on British naval ships was a main cause of the War of 1812.

 

[emsr2d2]

I was going to suggest "press-ganged" but decided it was too old-fashioned.

 

[diamondcutter]

I meant to ask whether there’s a structure of “catch somebody to do something”, where “to do something” refers to a purpose, but I think I didn’t give a good example. Maybe it’s better to replace “the king” with “the warlord”. There were many warlords in China in 1920s. They were cruel and selfish and nobody wanted to fight for them, so they had to catch young men like catching/catch (I’m not sure which one to choose) prey when they were at work, at home or on the street, etc. to fight for them. So, in this context, I’d like to know if the following sentence makes good sense.

The warlord wanted to extend his territory but he didn't have much soldiers so he caught many young men to fight for him.

 

[emsr2d2]

I still think you'd need to make it clearer than "caught/captured many young men to ...".

You can say "The warlord caught/captured many young men and forced them to fight for him"

In short, I can't think of a natural example of "to catch somebody to do something" when the person "doing something" is the same person who was caught.

 

[Tdol]

Tricked?