Which is the correct expression, looking to build or looking to building?
Whether you are looking to build. . . .
or
Whether you are looking to building. . . .
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tchrist
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Related and possible duplicate of 43 questions tagged with both infinitive and gerund, notably including http://english.stackexchange.com/q/329 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/63476 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/38964 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/25075 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/18772 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/23537 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/88014 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/13334 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/115073 and many more besides. – tchrist Aug 03 '13 at 02:18
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General Reference says that “looking to building” does not occur. – tchrist Aug 03 '13 at 02:56
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@tchrist: Google Books says that looking to going does occur. Admittedly, only 184 times, compared to tens of thousands of looking to go, but closely-related forms such as They look to going to a different place every year don't seem completely unreasonable to me. – FumbleFingers Aug 03 '13 at 15:23
1 Answers
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The grammatical choice would be:
“Whether you are looking to build…”
i.e. the infinitive.
redjives
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The present participle does occur in such contexts, but it's not common, and I would say it's dialectal and/or uneducated. – FumbleFingers Aug 03 '13 at 03:17
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"Looking to build something" but "looking into building something", and the meaning of "looking" has changed too. It's a miracle that some people actually learn this language. – Andreas Blass Aug 03 '13 at 03:24