# He is 'nervous to open' the email



## Dawei

Obviously it is correct to qualify the adjective by saying "he is too nervous to open the email". 

My question is if it's still grammatical to say it without the 'too'. It sounds a bit weird to my American ears. 

So what's the verdict? Does the "...too (adjective) to (verb)" construction _require _the first "too"? That is, should omitting it be marked as an error by an ESL teacher?


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## Rover_KE

It is wrong to say 'He is nervous to open the email'.

You could say 'He is nervous about opening the email'.

Rover


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## franc 91

For me the 'too' has to be there (his state of nervousness prevents him from opening it, because it's too intense, shall we say), otherwise I would say - he's nervous about opening his email.


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## Rufiaa

I agree with Rover here.

You are nervous ABOUT doing something.

You are *too *nervous TO DO something.


that's the grammatical formula for this. hope it helps!


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## JungKim

I think that it's correct to say 'He is afraid to open the email.'
So is this the slight difference in meaning between 'nervous' and 'afraid' that makes it possible to say the latter but not 'He is nervous to open the email.'?


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## Libeccio

JungKim said:


> So is this the slight difference in meaning between 'nervous' and 'afraid' that makes it possible to say the latter but not 'He is nervous to open the email.'?



To be precise, it's not the *meaning* of the two words that decides which form to use, it's the *usage* (which can often defy explanation!).


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## perpend

I don't know. I know it's a revived thread, but it's an interesting query.

We could introduce "happy".

X) He is *happy *to open the email.

Y) He is afraid to open the email.
Z) He is nervous to open the email.

I couldn't consider Z) wrong, but I personally do find it very unidiomatic.


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## Andygc

perpend said:


> I couldn't consider Z) wrong, but I personally do find it very unidiomatic.


I could, and do consider it wrong (which also makes it unidiomatic). Libeccio is correct.  It is the usage that decides the matter. We don't follow 'nervous' with the infinitive unless we modify it with 'too'.


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## perpend

That's all well and good, but I don't think you can say that an adjective has to have a "too" before it to be used correctly in this context.


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## Andygc

I didn't say that. I said that 'nervous' needs the 'too', which it does.


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## perpend

Sans "too" doesn't make it wrong, it's just unidiomatic, as stated above.


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## Andygc

No, it's wrong. 





> Idiomatic, 2nd meaning
> linguistic usage that is grammatical and natural to native speakers of a language


We do not say "He was nervous to open the email", it's not English, and people learning English need to know that it's wrong.


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## perpend

Let me introduce another adjective: "excited".

_He was excited to open the email._

Also correct and fine.


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## JungKim

Some of the quotes found in news articles having "nervous to" without "too":
Are these simply an inadvertent error on the part of the speaker/writer?


> _I was *nervous to write* this because it makes me sound like a sap. Rationally I know it's silly, counterproductive and, to some extent, perhaps non-feminist, too.
> _-From an English writer named Alison Taylor posted in the Independent.





> _Speaking about releasing her first album, Butterfly Effect, Ashley admits she was very nervous about going solo.__"I was nervous when it first came out. I was *nervous to go* on Twitter._
> _"I had a lot of fear about whether I could do it - whether I could pull it off.
> _-From Ashley Roberts, an American singer, posted on Mirror.


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## Andygc

What's your point? The thread is about the use of 'too' (or not) in "He is nervous to open the email."

Excited is a participle being used normally in the past tense.  Nervous is not. 
He was excited to open the email. = To open the email excited him. 
He was nervous to open the email. = To open the email nervoused him. 

This is a particular usage point with 'nervous'. It's about an idiosyncrasy of idiomatic usage, where the unidiomatic usage is immediately recognisable by a native speaker as being wrong. How we use other adjectives, be they participles like 'excited' or descriptive adjectives like 'happy' is irrelevant  You were perfectly clear about its unacceptability





> but I personally do find it very unidiomatic.


so why are you arguing that learners of English should accept it as correct English?


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## Andygc

Jung, you can find pretty well anything on the Internet. This one's interesting





> Ashley admits she was very nervous about going solo."I was nervous when it first came out. I was nervous to go on Twitter.


Note that the reporter naturally used "nervous about", whereas the quotation is of what Ashley said. I find her "nervous to go on Twitter" abnormal.


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## sound shift

Andygc said:


> I find her "nervous to go on Twitter" abnormal.


So do I. Perhaps she doesn't have a good command of the language.


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## JungKim

Andygc said:


> Jung, you can find pretty well anything on the Internet. This one's interestingNote that the reporter naturally used "nervous about", whereas the quotation is of what Ashley said. I find her "nervous to go on Twitter" abnormal.



So are you saying that the reporter must be speaking a better English than the singer?
If so, please take a look at the other quote from the Independent. There, the one who wrote "I was nervous to write this..." is actually a professional writer who were writing the column for the Independent. Is this professional writer making an mistake here?


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## sound shift

Yes, I think this professional writer is making a mistake. Because journalists work to tight deadlines, mistakes are sometimes made.


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## Andygc

sound shift said:


> Yes, I think this professional writer is making a mistake.


Yes, there's nothing to stop professional writers, even very succesful and rich ones, making mistakes or writing badly - just try reading a Dan Brown novel.


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## Mione

Rufiaa said:


> I agree with Rover here.
> 
> You are nervous ABOUT doing something.
> 
> You are *too *nervous TO DO something.
> 
> 
> that's the grammatical formula for this. hope it helps!



Hello,

So if we want to use "very" (or any other intensifier) along with "nervous", the same rule applies ("about", instead of "to"), right?

I've seen the following headline on the BBC website: "Britons 'nervous to speak foreign language when abroad'". Assuming that BBC's English is right, is 'too' then implied and has just been omitted to make the headline shorter? (as they usually try to do on newspapers, etc.)?

Many thanks.


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## franc 91

Yes it's a headline so, as you say, the word 'too' has been left out on purpose.


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## Mione

franc 91 said:


> Yes it's a headline so, as you say, the word 'too' has been left out on purpose.



Ok, thanks for your reply!


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## JungKim

Having been notified of this revived thread, I was doing some research and have found a book titled "A Valency Dictionary of English: A Corpus-based Analysis of the Complementation Patterns of English Verbs, Nouns, and Adjectives", wherein adjective 'nervous' is said to be followed by to-infinitive as in "I am always a little nervous to generalize on youth attitudes. At the beginning I was nervous to answer the phone."

The book also says, "*A person can be nervous to do something.* i.e., doing it makes them nervous."

Doesn't this show that at least there is some usage of this specific pattern?


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## Parla

It shows that the author of that book thinks so. 

We would say that a person can be nervous *about doing* something.


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## JungKim

Not to argue with you or anything, Parla, but I think that that particular usage is listed in that book because their 'corpus basis analysis' supports that the usage is actually in use, not simply because the author or authors subjectively think so.

And if you click on the second link, it'll lead you to the page where they also list the form 'nervous about N/V-ing' as well. Also, note that this form is marked as "(frequent)". So what the book's saying is that the latter form is being used more frequently than the other forms including the 'nervous to infinitive' form. But that doesn't necessarily mean that this 'nervous to infinitive' form is not in use. Not according to their corpus.


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## Andygc

Nobody is disputing that "nervous to do something" is used and could be found in a corpus. A corpus-based analysis will inevitably find non-standard usage, particularly if the corpus, like the British National Corpus, contains transcripts of spoken English. The point being made here is that the English-speakers contributing to this thread consider "He is too nervous to open the email" as standard usage and "He is nervous to open the email" as misuse. At what point does non-standard become standard? When we have discussions involving the "correctness" of non-standard usage I have often referred in this forum to the structure "I could of ...". That is widely found in corpora and "of" is recorded as a verb in the OED, yet nobody appears to claim that it is grammatical, idiomatic or standard. What does your book say about the complementation of the verb "could" with "of"?


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## JungKim

Andygc said:


> At what point does non-standard become standard? When we have discussions involving the "correctness" of non-standard usage I have often referred in this forum to the structure "I could of ...". That is widely found in corpora and "of" is recorded as a verb in the OED, yet nobody appears to claim that it is grammatical, idiomatic or standard.



Regarding "I could of...", Oxford Dictionaries Online says:


> A common mistake is to write the word of instead of _*have *_or _*'ve*_: _I *could of* told you that_ instead of _I *could’ve* told you that_. The reason for the mistake is that the pronunciation of _*have*_ in unstressed contexts is the same as that of _*of*_, and the two words are confused when it comes to writing them down. The error was recorded as early as 1837 and, though common, is unacceptable in standard English.


I know of many other books and dictionaries whose usage sections state that this particular use of "of" instead of "have" is non-standard English. In fact, I'd be very surprised if any usage book or dictionary says otherwise.



Andygc said:


> What does your book say about the complementation of the verb "could" with "of"?


I don't have access to the book (actually it's a dictionary), so I have no way of knowing for sure. But given that it focuses on "complementation patterns of verbs, nouns and adjectives", it's unlikely that the book would discuss anything about the complementation of modal auxiliaries like "could". But in any case, I'd be very surprised that the dictionary would approve of the use of "of" as in "could of" given that the universal dismissal of such usage in many other dictionaries and usage books, as discussed above.

Since I have come up with at least one dictionary that approves of the "nervous + to infinitive" construction, I'd like to know if there's any other dictionary and/or usage guide that says that this construction is wrong or at least non-standard, regardless of the fact that many educated writers do use this construction, as in this Forbes article:


> Knowing this, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I met him. As a novice in the education world, I was nervous to meet this luminary.



Also note, in comparison, that no educated writer in present-day English would write "could of" instead of "could have".


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## perpend

Every day, I am nervous to click on this thread. (_*This one*_. I click once a day. Probably not good for my heart.)

Is that wrong/incorrect, Andy?


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## owlman5

perpend said:


> Every day, I am nervous to click on this thread. (_*This one*_. I click once a day. Probably not good for my heart.)
> 
> Is that wrong/incorrect, Andy?


I can't answer for Andy, perpend, but I can answer for myself.  "I am nervous to click on this thread" sounds very stiff and foreign to me.  If you had used "I am nervous about clicking on this thread", I'd have no problem with your sentence.  There are other idiomatic ways of expressing the idea, so I see no reason to advocate the idea of using "to" after "nervous".


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## perpend

JungKim has provided enough research to show that it doesn't even need championing, and that it is not incorrect, for me. I do believe that is the large part of the discussion in the thread. I may have misread.


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## Loob

Perp, in post 7 you said you found it very unidiomatic: have you changed your mind?


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## perpend

Oh boy/girl. I was afraid of someone reading that. It was on 9/2/2014. Thanks for noticing.

I don't think I've changed my mind altogether, but thanks for pointing it out, Loob.


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## Andygc

You misunderstand me JungKim. I am not in any way suggesting that "could of" is grammatical. The point I was making is that a corpus-based study will find usage that is non-standard and, possibly, quite clearly wrong. You can cite as many examples as you like, but in the opinions of most contributors to this thread, the form "he is nervous to do something" is non-standard and incorrect and the standard forms are "he is too nervous to do something" and "he is nervous about doing something" - not forgetting "he is nervous of doing something".

You have referred to a dictionary that has a very narrow scope, based on one corpus of British English, which is reporting valencies that have been found in that corpus. You haven't < come up with at least one dictionary that approves of the "nervous + to infinitive" construction >, you have come up with a dictionary that records something. It's not the role of dictionaries to "approve" of anything, although they may include usage notes where there is a wide consensus about a particular point.

I have read the introduction. The authors have selected examples where they believe their analysis is valid, but I suggest that their analysis and your interpretation of it in this particular case may be open to dispute. Ngrams can give us some ideas about this, although they have limitations:

_VERB_ nervous to,_VERB_ too nervous too,_VERB_ nervous about
is nervous to,is too nervous to,is nervous about
am nervous to,am too nervous to,am nervous about
was nervous to,was too nervous to,was nervous about

I think that demonstrates that "he is nervous to" is not a standard form, as we (apart from perpend) have been saying.


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## JungKim

Andygc said:


> Ngrams can give us some ideas about this, although they have limitations:
> 
> _VERB_ nervous to,_VERB_ too nervous too,_VERB_ nervous about
> is nervous to,is too nervous to,is nervous about
> am nervous to,am too nervous to,am nervous about
> was nervous to,was too nervous to,was nervous about
> 
> I think that demonstrates that "he is nervous to" is not a standard form, as we (apart from perpend) have been saying.



You don't even believe what a corpus-based analysis done by professional linguists says, but you believe your ngrams? On top of that, even your own ngrams clearly show the 'be nervous to' construction is in use, albeit less frequently than other constructions. Is less frequent forms always not standard?

Moreover, comparing 'nervous about' with 'nervous to' is like comparing apples with oranges, I think.
What I feel are more appropriate ngrams are as follows:

is nervous to,is too nervous to
am nervous to,am too nervous to
was nervous to,was too nervous to
are nervous to,are too nervous to
were nervous to,were too nervous to


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## Andygc

JungKim said:


> You don't even believe what a corpus-based analysis done by professional linguists says,


I have repeatedly said that a corpus-based analysis will find examples of usage which other people may question.


Andygc said:


> Nobody is disputing that "nervous to do something" is used and could be found in a corpus.


I believe that the authors of that dictionary have found examples of "nervous to", but they have not gone as far as to analyse the difference between "too nervous to" and "nervous to". I don't disbelieve that they have found this particular valency. All I am saying, along with several other people here, is that we find "he is nervous to" unacceptable. As an example 


owlman5 said:


> "I am nervous to click on this thread" *sounds very stiff and foreign to me*. If you had used "I am nervous about clicking on this thread", I'd have no problem with your sentence. There are other idiomatic ways of expressing the idea, so I see no reason to advocate the idea of using "to" after "nervous".


I concur with that comment. I don't appear to be alone:


Rover_KE said:


> It is wrong to say 'He is nervous to open the email'.





franc 91 said:


> For me the 'too' has to be there





sound shift said:


> So do I. Perhaps she doesn't have a good command of the language.


This thread started with a native English speaker questioning a usage which seemed wrong. With one exception, the native English speakers agreed that it was wrong, and even the dissenter disagreed with himself. We consider the normal form to be "he is nervous about", and we also consider the infinitive form to require a modifier such as "he is too nervous to".

You have found a specialised dictionary, based on a corpus, which unsurprisingly includes a structure we consider wrong, you have found some examples written by educated writers which we also consider wrong, and you don't appear to understand that because we consider "he is nervous about" to be the correct structure a comparison of "is nervous to" and "is nervous about" is relevant and valid. On that basis you tell us that we are wrong about the language some of us have been using for over 60 years.

There's nothing to add, is there?


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## Rover_KE

Brilliant, Andy.

_<-----Off-topic comment removed by moderator (Florentia52)----->_


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## sdgraham

Rover_KE said:


> Brilliant, Andy.



Add my two  worth.


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## Forero

In "he is too nervous to open the email", the infinitive qualifies "too", not "nervous", so you can't leave out "too" and expect to preserve the meaning.

If I mean to say "nervous about opening", I won't say "nervous to open". "Happy/glad/excited to open" means more than "happy/glad/excited about opening", so I would not expect "nervous to open" to mean "nervous about opening", pure and simple.

But I agree with perpend that "be nervous" might, in the right context, be followed by an infinitive in standard English, but we need sufficient context to give it meaning.
There is an obvious difference between positive adjectives and negative adjectives in regard to what looks like the same structure. "I was happy/glad/excited to open the email" almost says I opened the email happily/gladly/excitedly, whereas "I was afraid/scared/hesitant to open the email" suggests my feelings prevented me, at least temporarily, from opening the email.

It is probably common to start to say something like "afraid to open" and back off from "afraid" to "nervous" while neglecting to proofread the result. Generally speaking, nervousness is not a strong enough feeling to delay me from opening an email, but can context give "nervous" a "hesitant" meaning?
Hesitating at the prospect of doing something makes sense, as does feeling good while doing something, and these are not the only ideas that can be expressed with an infinitive after an adjective. "Nervous in order to open the email" is probably not viable, but maybe something like "nervous for opening", "nervous at opening", or "nervous upon opening" could fit.


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## JungKim

Andygc said:


> you don't appear to understand that because we consider "he is nervous about" to be the correct structure a comparison of "is nervous to" and "is nervous about" is relevant and valid.


Andy, you seem to have misunderstood my comment about comparing "nervous to" and "nervous about", perhaps in part because I didn't elaborate enough why I thought they were apples and oranges. I just didn't want to lengthen the already lengthy post. But now I have to. 

It was in relation to your using those phrases in the same ngram graph that I commented that comparing the two constructions was like comparing apples and oranges. Because the ngram is designed to show multiple usage graphs in the same scale, putting these two phrases in the same scale would make the "nervous to" graph look unjustly trivial or almost non-existent, regardless of whether its usage is actually trivial or non-existent, in order to be able to show the "nervous about" graph in the same scale.

As you may very well be aware, Andy, the "nervous about" construction is much more frequently used than the "nervous to" construction, and these two constructions may not directly compete for the same spot in the same context. If the "nervous to" construction was ever legitimately used in a certain context, it might not have been used in place of the "nervous about" construction but perhaps in place of the "too nervous to" construction.

For example, if you ngram "afraid of" and "afraid for", you get this dramatic result, where the "afraid for" construction seems trivial or almost non-existent. But this "almost non-existent" graph of the "afraid for" construction does not necessarily mean that the "afraid for" construction is ungrammatical or that the "afraid of" construction can be substituted for the "afraid for" construction in the same context, but simply that these two constructions are used in different contexts, one of which is much more frequent than the other.



Andygc said:


> You have found a specialised dictionary, based on a corpus, which unsurprisingly includes a structure we consider wrong, you have found some examples written by educated writers which we also consider wrong
> ...
> On that basis you tell us that we are wrong about the language some of us have been using for over 60 years.
> 
> There's nothing to add, is there?



I'm not here to play the blame game, but I cannot take the blame for what I haven't done. Never did I tell you that native speakers, including those who participated in this thread, are wrong about their native language.

If there's anyone who tells anyone that native speakers are wrong about their native language, it's you, Andy. But never me. You're the one who tells me that all those educated writers who use the "nervous to" construction are wrong, aren't you?

And if you had to choose between a handful of educated native speakers participating in this thread on the one hand and thousands of educated writers and a "specialized dictionary" written by linguists on the other, would you be able to readily choose the former? On what basis?


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## geostan

I would like to respond to the sentence *He was excited to open the email.* This is not something I would say. It is another case where I would use *about*. _*He was excited about opening the email.*_


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## sdgraham

JungKim said:


> And if you had to choose between a handful of educated native speakers participating in this thread on the one hand and thousands of educated writers and a "specialized dictionary" written by linguists on the other, would you be able to readily choose the former? On what basis?


Having developed a close relationship with a large number of educated native speakers here over the years and having seen some of the incomprehensible jargon quoted by learners, I, for one, consider the former far more practical.


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## Cagey

This is a disagreement incapable of resolution.   
The original question has been thoroughly discussed.  

Anyone who consults the thread will be able to read the positions explained and decide which advice best suits their needs. 

This thread is closed. 

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the discussion.

Cagey, moderator.


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