be gone into

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ostap77

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If an issue needed to be considered carefully, could I say "This issue needs to be gone into with carefulness"?
 
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That is a correct construction, " to be gone into" is the passive infinitive of "to go into". Although I doubt you would say go into an issue.

[Not a teacher]
 
ostap77 said:
If an issue needed to be considered carefully, could I say "This issue needs to be gone into with carefulness"?
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No. It needs to be carefully gone into or, possibly, gone into with care.
 
I guess you go into a matter not in a matter?!
 
"With carefulness" is grammatically awkward? Or is it just "carefulness"?
 
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What's wrong about it? Grammatically or stilistically?
 
Until today I had never met with "carefulness".
 
You're going to be surprised what's new in dictionaries!! Or is it what someone hears or doesn't hears?!
 
That's interesting. I came to the thread late but had I been here earlier, I too would have marked "carefulness" as incorrect on the basis that the word just isn't used/doesn't exist. However, I have now found it in several online dictionaries showing it as the noun relating to the adverb "carefully". I still think it sounds awkward and agree that "it should be carefully gone into" sounds better.
 
I've even got it in my non-oline dictionary. And it even is on COCAE. Would it be old-fashioned or rare? It's even been used on whitehouse.gov. And it's even been used on BBC.
 
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Given that it appears in all those dictionaries, I certainly stand corrected about its existence but I don't think I've heard it used! If I were asked to come up with the noun related to "carefully", I would just say "care".

He did it carefully = He did it with care. I wouldn't use "He did it with carefulness".
 
emsr2d2 said:
Given that it appears in all those dictionaries, I certainly stand corrected about its existence but I don't think I've heard it used! If I were asked to come up with the noun related to "carefully", I would just say "care".

He did it carefully = He did it with care. I wouldn't use "He did it with carefulness".
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It is listed as a noun in the entries for "careful" in several dictionaries. The only dictionary I can find that gives examples of its use is the Websters 1828 edition.
 
She bathed and dressed with utmost carefulness and succeeded in doing this without waking anybody.

What about this sentence ?
 
Well, given that we've established that it's in dictionaries and could be used, I wouldn't go so far as to say it's wrong. However, I would certainly say its extremely unlikely to be used by any native speaker and many would assume it was wrong if they heard it. I would use "she bathed and dressed with [the] utmost care..."
 
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