Discussion»Questions»Education» What does the verb "to often" mean? As in the phrase "trying not to often". I've never heard of "often" as a verb, have you?
It definitely said "to often". I wouldn't have thought it was meant to say "to offend". I've never heard of anybody confusing those two words before, have you, Marguerite?
How did you work that one out, Ozgirl? When I see "to" I only think of "to", I absolutely never think of "too" simply because the two words are unconnected. In the context of the sample sentence, "often" became a verb by virtue of being preceded by "to", as in "trying not to cry" or "trying not to be angry" or something like that. I couldn't see it any way but that. What made you think of "too"?
I know we all do that from time to time, hartfire, but I don't get it why some people don't either correct it before they post it or else edit it before the edit function times out. Surely that's not hard to do.
I'm not saying I'm correct here in what the writer intended, but "to" does mean toward .... Whilst "too" implies a quantity of some type ...eg, are you coming too? ... I'm too full to eat anymore! ... Often talks about frequency of occurrence ... To me, "too often" is a natural fit ... I'm sorry i can't give you an exact grammar reason, the exact rules were never my strong point ... But I do believe this was what the writer meant. :)
Four versions (so far) of what the writer might have meant: "trying not to offend," "I don't try often/much," "I don't try too often," "often trying not to [do something.]"
Marguerite, the Beloved 