Summary: This post is about how to make sentences in business English. It starts with one of the biggest mistakes in English ‘suggested to build a new team’ and then moves on to discuss the reasons and concepts behind. In a way, you will learn what gerunds and infinitives are, but without explanations that are difficulty and not funny.
Big Verbs followed by verb+ing
Before you know which (Big) verbs are to be followed by verb+ing, I’ll tell you the biggest mistake in Business English, really the biggest. What is it? Read the following sentence.
Why? Why? Why?However, in George Yule’s book (Explaining English Grammar), he has come up with an explanation. According to him, the thing followed by ‘suggest’ is an event. What does that mean? It means it is like a noun. In other words, to build (from the above example) is more like an action but less like a noun.
| Situation |  Apologising for making mistakes |
I regret making the mistakes (that was careless), but I deny having anything to do with money laundry.
| regret | making (make + ing) |
| deny | having (have + ing) |
So you’ve got the rule that ‘regret and deny’ are usually followed by verb+ing. But what is wrong with ‘I regret to make the mistakes‘.
Besides Yule’s above explanation, I would suggest another one. ‘To make the mistakes’ sounds like the mistake has not been made. A mistake is in the future. Odd enough! Right? In fact, I guess you have been using to+verb in daily and professional lives. Are the following two situations familiar to you?
Situation 1: Things to buy at a supermarket
Things + to buySo have you bought the things already? Probably not. As ‘to buy‘ has something to do with the future.
Situation 2: Schedule
People to meet at 10:30
So, when you use to+verb, you usually refer to something that is to be done, and that you haven’t done it yet.
The case of ‘deny’
On the contrary, can you deny something that is to be done? Probably not. The things you deny can hardly be in the future, right? That is, if you want to know how to use deny, once again, you may get in touch with your feelings. What do you feel about things you deny?
Do you like what you deny?
You’ve got it, I guess. Usually, for things you don’t like (or hate), you take verb+ing. A typical example is:
Similarly, other Big Verbs about things you don’t like followed by verb+ing include:
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avoid
delay
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 * |
postpone
risk
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How to Make Sentences in Business English
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