student asking question

Is the phrase "remember the names" skipped after "not to"? Why did the speaker skip it?

teacher

Native speaker’s answer

Rebecca

Thank you for your question! Yes, he did not add "remembering the names" in this part of the sentence because he already mentioned it. It is skipped because it is already known. This is also an exact quote from a book, so he is telling the audience the quote. Here is the sentence with "remembering the names" added: "You will not remember the name of the next person you meet because you programmed your super computer not remembering the names." This sentence is grammatically correct however it is quite long and a little repetitive. Removing "remembering the names" makes the sentence shorter and even clearer. This is done quite often in English. Here is an example conversation of where part of the sentence is skipped: A: Would you like to go to the beach on Saturday? B: Yes! I want to. Person B has left out "go to the beach on Saturday." Why? This is because it is not needed. Person B already knows the location of where Person A wants to go on Saturday. Person B also knows that Person A will understand that she wants to go to the beach too. This is why Person B skips that part of the sentence; it is already known and was already mentioned.

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