Suppose I wrote the following:
I decided the target for our firm is to be to provide better services.
Would this be correct?
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It is grammatically acceptable; but it is gnarly to read.
There is a linguistic rule-of-thumb called horror aequi which states that people don't like to hear or read identical constructions too close together. The back-to-back to infinitives violate this rule; you would do better to express futurity with will:
I decided the target for our firm will be to provide better services.
In addition, target is not a good choice here. In business-speak, a target usually means a specific measurable goal to be achieved in a specific period, such as ‘$20M revenue in 2015’ or ‘Top 5 market share by Q3 2018’. ‘To provide better services’ might better be characterized as your firm’s ‘mission’ or perhaps ‘strategy’.
StoneyB on hiatus
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The correct form would be
I decided the target for our firm is to provide better services.
Drop the 'to be'
Anda Popovici
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1This has different meaning. Your variant means that the target is (and has been) the same, not that is to be so in the future. – Anixx Nov 06 '14 at 09:22
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1OK, I didn't get this meaning from your question. If you mean a plan for the future, then the usage is correct. – Anda Popovici Nov 06 '14 at 10:10
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I decided the target for our firm is to be to provide better services.
Two ideas seem to have become conflated here. Compare:
- Our firm is to provide better services.
- Our target is to provide better services.
In [1], is the modal (Palmer 1999.164), semi-modal (Leech, 2204.104), modal idiom (Quirk et al, 1985.135) or quasi Modal (Huddleston & Pullum, 2002,113-4).
