"all I wanted to do is do something" vs. "all I wanted to do is to do something"

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shiqangpan
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"all I wanted to do is do something" vs. "all I wanted to do is to do something"

Post by shiqangpan »

At about 17′39″ into the video linked below, I'm pretty sure the instructor was saying "all I wanted to do was get to the free food" rather than "... was to get to the free food""

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1054&v= ... e=youtu.be[/youtube]

I'm aware the main pattern in this sentence is “what X was Y” though, I'd just like to know whether it is common and acceptable to say something like that in spoken English? For example, use "all I wanted to do is do something" instead of "all I wanted to do is to do something"?
rotan
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Re: "all I wanted to do is do something" vs. "all I wanted to do is to do something"

Post by rotan »

The first "to" already eliminates the other "to" I believe...

Try twisting the first part into the following pattern: grammatical person+only+verb+to

In this case: All I wanted to do was = I only wanted to
As you can see, you already have "to", so you can't add another one, because you can't "want to do to something"

Another example:
"All you had to do was take care of the dog."
All you had to do was = You only had to
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