Talk:set to work

From Requested entries.

• set to work — a verb idiom or a set phrase. Some 9 million Google hits - google:"set to work". --Dan Polansky 14:41, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

  A quotation: "We may take next the way of MEMORY. If I set to work to recall what I did this morning, that is a form of consciousness different from perception, since it is concerned with the past."[1]

  Indeed, work is almost the only verb that works with "set" in this way on COCA. Compare with get + "to [verb]". DCDuring TALK 00:11, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

  Wrong analysis for "set NP1 to work(NP2)". "Work" is a noun. Several nouns work in the NP2 position in this sense as well as many gerunds.

  set to work may be the same. DCDuring TALK 23:48, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

  (Unindent) Hi, I have only a poor command of the "set to work" phrase, which is why I have added it as a requested entry. To me it seems synonymous, in the quotation that I have provided and that you quoted above, to "try", "attempt" or "endeavor". It seems to mean not only that something is attempted without guaranteed success but also that effort needs to be expended in that attempt.

  Other phrases showing the same syntactic pattern: google:"set to prove", google:"set to provide". These may be sum-of-parts, but I don't know whether they are and which of the senses of set should be a part in this candidate SoP construction. --Dan Polansky 08:43, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the extra examples of the "set to VP" structure. I have read that "set" has the longest entry in the OED. Perhaps I'll be off to my local library to read up today. I wish it also had one of the definitive grammars as well. DCDuring TALK 09:37, 29 May 2009 (UTC)