I meant nothing but to compel you to come.

[taruns1008]

#1 I meant nothing but to compel you to come.

#2 I meant nothing but compel you to come.

#3 I meant nothing less than compelling you to come.

#4 I meant nothing less than to compel you to come.

Which version is correct?

*PS: I forgot to mention #4 sentence in my original post. #4 sentence is given as a question and I have to found correct version (if #4 is not correct).

 

[Matthew Wai]

I consider #1 correct, but I am not a teacher.

 

[bhaisahab]

I don't find any of them natural.

 

[Matthew Wai]

Is it natural to say 'I just meant to compel you to come'?

 

[emsr2d2]

They sound like they might be found in a centuries-old text. None of them sounds natural in current English.

I didn't mean to do anything other/more than to make you come.
My intention was simply to make you come.

 

[TheParser]

***** NOT A TEACHER *****


Mona: Why did you call me 10 times yesterday to remind me about today's party? You really upset me.

You: I apologize, Mona. But I just wanted to make sure that you would come.

 

[taruns1008]

Mona: Why did you call me 10 times yesterday to remind me about today's party? You really upset me.

You: I apologize, Mona. But I just wanted to make sure that you would come.

Actually I found these sentences in a Book for error correction. So I have to stick to these sentences and found if there is any error.

 

[Matthew Wai]

I think 'but to compel' and 'less than to compel' are grammatical, but I am not a teacher.

 

[TheParser]

So I have to stick to these sentences and found if there is any error.

***** NOT A TEACHER *****

Hello, Taruns:

I am not nitpicking. (Criticizing little, unimportant mistakes.)

But I notice that you have done it twice, so I thought that you would like me to respectfully remind you of something.


That sentence should be: "So I have to stick to these sentences and find if there are any errors."

I believe that "find" (not "found") is correct because the whole sentence is:

"I have to stick to these sentences and (to) find if there are any errors." (As you can guess, native speakers often do delete the "to" in front of "find.")

I thought that you would like me to bring this matter to your attention.

 

[Polyester]

Why do the native speakers always delete the "to" in front of "find"?

 

[MikeNewYork]

We delete it because it is not needed.

 

[Matthew Wai]

Why do the native speakers always delete the "to" in front of "find"?

I think the reason is that 'to' is already used in 'have to', so it can be omitted before 'find', but I am not a teacher.

 

[emsr2d2]

Think about it like this:

I have to ...
You have to what?
I have to ... stick to and find ...

 

[Rover_KE]

Why do [STRIKE]the[/STRIKE] native speakers always delete the "to" in front of "find"?

If you had read TheParser's post more carefully, you would have seen that he wrote "...native speakers often delete the 'to'..."