[Vocabulary] force someone to do vs into doing

[yuriya]

1. Some bad guy forced you to sign the contract.
2. Some bad guy forced you into signing the contract.

I think that sentence 1 means that you may or may not have signed the contract yet with a strong implication that you did sign the contract, but sentence 2 means only that you gave in and signed the contract. Am I reading them all right? Thanks in advance!

 

[BobK]

The way I use them, and typically the way I hear them used, isn't so subtle. If you force someone to do something, they do it. 'Force ... to'. Instead of forcing them to do it, you could trick/dupe/cajole... them into doing it (there must be others, but they're the only three that come to mind at the moment - perhaps someone else can chip in :? You can also lead someone into something, but it's usually a noun rather than a gerund: sin, error, a mistake, danger...

b

 

[yuriya]

The way I use them, and typically the way I hear them used, isn't so subtle. If you force someone to do something, they do it. 'Force ... to'. Instead of forcing them to do it, you could trick/dupe/cajole... them into doing it (there must be others, but they're the only three that come to mind at the moment - perhaps someone else can chip in :? You can also lead someone into something, but it's usually a noun rather than a gerund: sin, error, a mistake, danger...

b

Thanks, BobK as always! Am I right to assume that there's a feel of "unawareness" when using the preposition "into" here? That is, you don't know what happened exactly but somehow you find yourself in a sticky situation?

 

[BobK]

I don't know about 'unawareness'... If you fool someone into doing something (there's another of these verbs that take 'into'), they do do it.

b