besides open doors - why?

[JACEK1]

Hello again.

Well you can open doors with it but it's not only a door key. What else can you do with a key besides open doors?

Why is the structure "besides open doors" used instead of "besides opening doors"?

Would it be possible, for example, to say something like that?

Besides open doors, he does many other useful chores around the house.

What do you think?

 

[Tarheel]

Hello again.

Well you can open doors with it, but it's not only a door key. What else can you do with a key besides open doors?

Why is the structure "besides open doors" used instead of "besides opening doors"?

Would it be possible, for example, to say something like that?

Besides open doors, he does many other useful chores around the house.

What do you think?

I think you can get away with besides opening doors (first question/sentence). However, somebody might disagree with me.

As for the second one, you absolutely have to say:

Besides opening doors, he does many other useful chores around the house. (One of the weirdest sentences I've ever seen.)
​

However, while I am sure I am right, I do not have an explanation. (MkeNewYork or Tdol might though.)

 

[JACEK1]

As far as my education of Eglish is concerned, I have always been taught that "besides" is followed by the gerund structure.

 

[Raymott]

"What else can you do with a key besides open doors?" There's a parallelism there. It works.
"What do you do?" / "I open doors."
The rule you learnt has exceptions. "A sentence starting with ''besides'' is followed by the gerund." You could try that, but that's not true either. "Besides the baby, there are three older children." Besides, there are too many exceptions, I think.

 

[JACEK1]

For the sake of clarity/being uderstood, it is better to use the gerund structure.

 

[Tdol]

Possibly, but they both work for me.

 

[MikeNewYork]

Perhaps this is an electronic device that can open a door, turn on the lights, start the air conditioner, etc.

 

[Tarheel]

Re:

What else can you do with a key besides open doors?

​

Just in case anybody is wondering, I didn't comment on that one not because it is wrong but because it seemed to me to be obviously right. (It's also a question I never thought I'd see anybody ask. You never know what you'll see on this forum. ;-))

(By the way, I only use my door key to open doors. ;-))

 

[Rover_KE]

What do you use to lock it again?

 

[emsr2d2]

I use my door key to get into those infuriating plastic packages which usually require scissors.

 

[MikeNewYork]

For that I use my Swiss army knife. :-D