The Penguin Dictionary of American English Usage and Style : A ...

438 together with
To can also indicate accompaniment
(“dance to the music”), addition
(“adding insult to injury”), agreement
(“to my liking”), benefit (“It goes to a
good cause”), contact (“a blow to the
jaw”), direction (“I’m going to town”),
extent or result (“It’s burned to ashes”),
limit (“We stayed to the end”), possession
(“It belongs to us”), purpose (“I
work to support my family), ratio (“The
odds are two to one”), and many other
things.
To occasionally is an adverb meaning
toward something implied or understood
(“They kept the ship to” [the
wind]) or to a point of contact (“She
soon came to” [consciousness]).
This two-letter word is overworked as
it is. It ought not to be loaded with still
more tasks: “The best present for the
person on your list who has everything
is . . . a gift membership to the . . . Institute.”
In that sentence, from a newsletter,
the idiomatic preposition would be
in.
The star of a situation comedy was directed
to say, “One night I came home to
find my ex-husband having sex with
three hookers in my lingerie.” Perhaps
nobody in the audience would seriously
remark, “There must be a better reason
to go home,” but that construction does
mimic to used in the sense of purpose.
Better: “I came home and found. . . . ”
Similarly: “ABC put two of its better
dramas . . . on Saturday nights only to
see them squashed” and “Students . . .
demonstrated in support of the protesting
workers, only to feel let down when
the strikes did not spread. . . . ” Probably
few if anyone would take such sentences
literally and think that the network
or the students showed masochistic tendencies;
nevertheless “only to” is a peculiar
form. The same points would be
made concisely with “and saw them
squashed” and “and felt let down. . . . ”
An established use of to is to indicate
a compulsion to perform an action:
“You are to report for work tomorrow
morning at 8.” Headline writers have
converted that to a simple future: “State
to appeal judge’s ruling,” meaning that
the state will appeal. Except in headlines,
a construction like “The rainy season is
to begin soon” is no substitute for the
simple future: “will begin soon.”
To has so many meanings that it can
easily be misinterpreted when used carelessly,
conveying a distorted message.
For instance: “George Fox . . . defied
Oliver Cromwell to found the Society of
Friends in the seventeenth century.” A
reader who thinks “to found” serves
there as an infinitive can interpret the
sentence as saying that Fox dared
Cromwell to found the society—which is
historically wrong. Either by founding or
in order to found would eliminate the
ambiguity. Although several critics condemn
the phrase in order to as a usually
excessive replacement for to alone, it
need not be avoided when, occasionally,
it makes the meaning clear.
See also COMPARED TO and COM-
PARED WITH; Gerund, 3; HAVE, HAS,
HAD, 4; Infinitive; Prepositions, 1, 7;
SPEAK TO, TALK TO; TO, TOO, and
TWO.
TOGETHER WITH. See WITH, 2.
TOO. 1. Meanings. 2. Omission of O.
1. Meanings
Two meanings of too (adverb) that
are suitable for both formal and informal
purposes are (1) also, in addition
(“They pay well and give benefits too”),
and (2) excessively, overly (“These shoes
are too big for my feet”). Used in the first
sense, too should not start a sentence,
but then too may.
Too has several colloquial uses. Sometimes
it is merely an intensive, used in
contradicting someone. “He is too the
best player.” So could be used instead.
At times too preceded by a negative