The verb have/to have is an irregular verb

[Sped Tiger]

Could you say, please, whether we don't use that infinitive to at all and whether therefore I shouldn't use it at all. If that infinitive to is unnatural and very seldom used, then the 1st is not to be used, while the 2nd is natural.
1. The verb to have is an irregular verb (like to flee, to rend, to shend, and to saw). If you use to have in order to talk about the past, you use had. The past inflection of to have is always had and never haved.
2. The verb have is an irregular verb (like flee, rend, shend, and saw). If you use have in order to talk about the past, you use had. The past inflection of have is always had and never haved.

 

[Tarheel]

Are you asking whether to use "to have" or "have"? Which is your habit? Go with that.

What is "shend"?

 

[5jj]

2. The verb HAVE is an irregular verb. If you use HAVE in order to talk about the past, you use had. The past inflection of HAVE is always had and never haved.

That's the convention for many writers on grammar.

 

[Sped Tiger]

That's the convention for many writers on grammar.

As I understand, using or not using the to is optional, right?

 

[Rover_KE]

Right.

 

[jutfrank]

It sounds from your last few questions that you're trying to write something. Is that right? If you tell us what you're writing, it will be much easier to answer more usefully.

 

[PaulMatthews]

As I understand, using or not using the to is optional, right?

No: "to have" is not a verb.

The verb is just "have". The word "to" is simply a subordinator functioning as a marker introducing the verb phrase and not part of the verb.

That applies to all verbs.

 

[Sped Tiger]

It sounds from your last few questions that you're trying to write something. Is that right? If you tell us what you're writing, it will be much easier to answer more usefully.

I have been asked to write a particular grammar guide on a certain subject of English grammar, and I am now in the process of doing that. However, I have some questions concerning how I should write some particular things in my guide, and now I'm trying to find it out.
As I have understood, that infinitive to is simply redundant, so I won't use it. But maybe I should?

 

[5jj]

infinitive to is simply redundant, so I won't use it.

Right.

But maybe I should?

No!

 

[emsr2d2]

When I learnt English grammar as a child (courtesy of my family, not at school) and when I learnt French and German, the infinitive was always expressed as "to + verb". I carried on using it that way until I went to teach English in Spain (three decades later) and saw that all the text books my students used simply gave the base verb without "to". I discovered that, in the intervening years, almost all grammar books and verb lists have ceased to include "to". It took some practice but I've finally trained myself not to include "to" when I'm actually talking about the bare infinitive.

 

[PaulMatthews]

I have been asked to write a particular grammar guide on a certain subject of English grammar, and I am now in the process of doing that. However, I have some questions concerning how I should write some particular things in my guide, and now I'm trying to find it out.
As I have understood, that infinitive to is simply redundant, so I won't use it. But maybe I should?

It's not a case of "to" being redundant, but of it simply not being part of the verb.

English does not have an infinitive form of the verb in the way that, say, French does.

As I said in my answer #7, "to have" is not a verb; it's two words, the subordinator "to" and the verb "have".

And this applies to all verbs.