Ssubject + be + infinitive - educate please)

[daurentur]

Dear Ron and JNelson,

Thanks for replying to my previous posts!

didn't want to bump up the threads you helped me with, so here is my appreciation :)

I have a question about the following usage:

1) John were to take care of Math cheat sheets

2) Not unitl 1900 were scholars to begin studying

3) You are to wash the car after sunrise

I want to understand what such construction generally mean?
Are they considered ok in formal writing or we can consider sudh constructions awkward?

If possible, could you write what each of the 3 construction litterally mean? (even if it doesn't make any sense)

[tim]

1) i'm not sure what you're trying to say in this one, so i can't comment on what it is supposed to mean..

2) "Not unitl 1900 were scholars to begin studying" - interpreting this literally, we have to transport ourselves back to a time before 1900, at which time presumably some rule was established whereby scholars were supposed to wait until 1900 to start studying. Even then, this one is still weird because the intent is clearly a prohibition but the wording indicates that someone may have been encouraging studying. All in all not the kind of sentence you'll see on the GMAT..

3) "You are to wash the car after sunrise" - this one makes the most sense of your three examples. It indicates that sometime after the sun rises, you must wash the car..

Not really sure what you were going for with these. There doesn't seem to be a consistent pattern to these, so i'm not sure what specific construction(s) you're asking about..