the first thing i did was

[gaktop]

this is driving me crazy: which one is correct and why?

example:

the first thing i did yesterday was cleaning the car.
the first thing i did yesterday was to clean the car.
the first thing i did yesterday was clean the car.

i thought the first and the second were correct until i saw this
http://www.ajarnforum.net/vb/the-classroom/31675-tricky-grammar-question-well-tricky-for-me-anyway.html

about how it should be "All he did was play his game" and not "all he did was playing his game". is there any kind of exception for this one or i am just plain wrong?

this is my first post :) thx guys!

[amYankee]

Hi Gaktop

I would look at it this way:

Verb tenses have a simple form and a continuous form in English. Your sentence establishes the use of a simple form (did) at the beginning.
In addition, the verb "be" acts like an equal sign. In other words, in your sentence "did" = simple form.

If we look at your sentence as the answer to a question, the question might theoretically look something like this:

- What was the first thing you did yesterday? Did you walk the dog? Did you do the laundry? Write a letter? Clean the car? What?

Thus, the word "what" asks for the base form of a verb, and your answer to the question is:

- The first thing I did yesterday was clean the car.

------------------------------------------------

As to your second sentence, it follows the same sort of logic. In this case, did = play
- All he did was play his game.


You could use "playing" like this:
Q: What was he doing when you checked on him?
A: All he was doing was playing his game.

i.e. In the response, "was doing" = "playing".

[Bridget]

Thus, the word "what" asks for the base form of a verb, and your answer to the question is:

- The first thing I did yesterday was clean the car.

And why not "was to clean the car"?

[gaktop]

it is a very clear explanation. thanks!

although what i meant with "cleaning" was not past continuous, but the noun form of the verb clean, because I thought that we should use noun after "be".

how if we swap the structure like this:

cleaning the car was the first thing that i did yesterday.
should it still be: clean the car was the first thing that i did yesterday?

[amYankee]

how if we swap the structure like this:

cleaning the car was the first thing that i did yesterday.
should it still be: clean the car was the first thing that i did yesterday?Hi Gaktop

As stand-alone sentences, both of those strike me as a bit awkward. Still, it seems to me that "clean" would be preferable. I think I'd be more comfortable with the wording if context were added. So, let's imagine that you had a to-do list for things that needed to be done yesterday. Your list might have looked like this:

- pick up the dry-cleaning
- clean the car
- do the laundry
- call the cable company

So, if you want to focus on the second thing on your to-do list, and say it was actually the first thing you did, then the following would sound just fine to me:

- Clean the car was the first thing that I did yesterday.

But I don't think I would use that word order in most cases.

----------------------------------------------------------
Now let's take a different example:

- Cleaning the house is how I spent the entire day.

I like "cleaning" in this case because it suggests duration, which ties in well with the verb "spend" and also with "the entire day".

- Cleaning the house is what I spent the entire day doing.

That's my two cents. Others may see things differently.

[Marius Hancu]

The stats in published books here are in accordance to what I hear:

5 on "did was cleaning the"
http://books.google.com/books?q=%22did+was+cleaning+the%22&btnG=Search+Books

97 on "did was to clean the"
http://books.google.com/books?q=%22did+was+to+clean+the%22&btnG=Search+Books

63 on "did was clean the"
http://books.google.com/books?q=%22did+was+clean+the%22&btnG=Search+Books

IMO, they are all correct, but see the frequency.

Click on the links to see real more context. Yankee has given you good pointers.

[amYankee]

Hi Marius,

I don't put much value on those types of searches unless you take the time to actually look at the sentences and verify the relevance and accuracy.

For example, did you actually bother to look at the five hits you got for "did was cleaning the"? I did, because even five measly hits seemed like far too many for my native speaker instinct to swallow.

When I looked at those five hits, I found that four of the five were identical. They all came from the same sentence in the same text. All duplicates. So, that fact alone drops number of actual search results down to two.

Looking then at the only two hits you got, I discovered that one is from a text written in 1854. That's over 150 years ago, Marius. In other words, not only are we referring to one of only two examples, but one of the examples is not even remotely current. So let's just toss that one out.

That leaves us with only a single hit -- and that one appears to come from something written in Taiwan. I'll leave it to you to find out whether that example might actually have been a typo, or whether it might have been written by a nonnative speaker of English who just didn't realize it was incorrect.

IMO, they are all correct, but see the frequency.I would say you are wrong.

Based on your search results and my knowledge of my own native language, it is quite appropriate to say that the following sentence contains an error:
"The first thing I did was cleaning my car."
The use of "cleaning" in that sentence is not correct.

As to the results you got for "clean" vs "to clean", I can tell you they are not representative of what I hear in American English. The bare infinitive is what I normally hear people use in sentences such as the ones that Gaktop posted. If there is any validity at all in the rest of your results, then I would venture a guess that there is a BrE vs AmE difference involved.

Last but not least, I would like to point out that context is completely absent from your search result numbers. The only thing you did was post a small group of words and some random numbers. I say "random" because you apparently looked at neither the full sentence context nor the broader context in the results your search turned up.

Sorry, but mindless posting of corpus search numbers drives me insane because it is so often meaningless to a learner, and too often completely misleading.

[Marius Hancu]

Yankee, re my 2nd stat, you seem to say all these writers are in the wrong:

-----
Federal supplement‎ - Page 85 (http://books.google.com/books?id=GbEyAAAAIAAJ&q=%22did+was+to+clean+the%22&dq=%22did+was+to+clean+the%22)

by United States. Court of Claims, West Publishing Company, United States. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals, United States. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation - Language Arts & Disciplines (http://books.google.com/books?q=+subject:%22Language+Arts+%26+Disciplines% 22) - 1940

Then I regulated the 'All Mr. Kramer did was to clean the stove which he found was in a dirty condition caused by using a poor grade of kerosene.
------
Vietnam Was More Than Just the Killing‎ - Page 98 (http://books.google.com/books?id=iecYbjvSgXsC&pg=PA98&dq=%22did+was+to+clean+the%22)

by Patrick H. Dockery - History (http://books.google.com/books?q=+subject:%22History%22) - 2002 - 216 pages

He informed me that one of the things they did was to clean the turbine blades within the jet engine. As he explained it, the engine would be started and an
--------
VM/SAC, Veterinary medicine & small animal clinician‎ - Page 769 (http://books.google.com/books?id=u8FUAAAAMAAJ&q=%22did+was+to+clean+the%22&dq=%22did+was+to+clean+the%22)

by Iowa-Nebraska Veterinary Medical Association, Missouri Valley Veterinary Association - Juvenile Fiction (http://books.google.com/books?q=+subject:%22Juvenile+Fiction%22) - 1915

... uterus lying on the ground behind her and with all the symptoms of parturient paresis. The calf was all right. The first thing I did was to clean the ...
------
Henry Ford: critical evaluations in business and management‎ - Page 146 (http://books.google.com/books?id=3XXxhbDU9P4C&pg=PA146&dq=%22did+was+to+clean+the%22)

by John Cunningham Wood, Michael C. Wood - Biography & Autobiography (http://books.google.com/books?q=+subject:%22Biography+%26+Autobiography%22 ) - 2003 - 384 pages

The first thing the Ford people did was to clean the railway from end to end and
to paint every building.
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The magic of their singing‎ - Page 58 (http://books.google.com/books?id=uxhKAAAAMAAJ&q=%22did+was+to+clean+the%22&dq=%22did+was+to+clean+the%22&lr=)

by Bernard Wolfe - Biography & Autobiography (http://books.google.com/books?q=+subject:%22Biography+%26+Autobiography%22&lr=) - 1961 - 247 pages

Thank you, I believe I will. Your father is not now in government?" "Oh, no. One of the first things Eisenhower did was to clean the Acheson people out. ...
-----


Great Today and Greater Future‎ - Page 253 (http://books.google.com/books?id=aOW-M7-SYcoC&pg=PA253&dq=%22did+was+to+clean+the%22&lr=)

by Henry Ford - Business & Economics (http://books.google.com/books?q=+subject:%22Business+%26+Economics%22&lr=) - 2003 - 372 pages

The first thing we did was to clean the railway from end to end and to paint
every building. New ties are being laid at the rate of about 300000 a year, ...

------
In the days of the American museum‎ - Page 25 (http://books.google.com/books?id=WqgdAAAAMAAJ&q=%22did+was+to+clean+the%22&dq=%22did+was+to+clean+the%22&lr=)

by Robert Edric - Fiction (http://books.google.com/books?q=+subject:%22Fiction%22&lr=) - 1990 - 406 pages

... the first thing Barnum did was to clean the face and broad shoulders of the
bust and wipe from its brow the sweat of condensation from the kerosene ...
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I don't think so, especially when they are published recently in the New York Times:

----
Yes, the Screen Is Tiny, but the Plans Are Big


By LOUISE STORY (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/louise_story/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
Published: June 17, 2007


Despite these possible limitations, media concerns are taking the cellphone seriously. When Cyriac Roeding joined the CBS television network as its head of mobile content two years ago, the first thing he did was to conduct a survey among viewers to find out how many tuned in with their cellphones at hand. He found that about 64 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds watch television with their cellphone almost always nearby.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/business/yourmoney/17mobile.html?pagewanted=all

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HOME FRONT; A Phone Venture: Calling All Prisoners

By IAN URBINA
Published: September 5, 2004

BRIAN PRINS's motto is this: One man's monopoly is another man's opportunity. After being released from prison in May 2002, the first thing he did was to make a business of pulling customers from under MCI's exclusive control of New York States prison phone system.


http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D02E5D81131F936A3575AC0A9629C8B 63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

------

Now, if the New York Times doesn't use correct American English, no one does.

[Marius Hancu]

However, re my first stat:

5 on "did was cleaning the"

I think, based on objections from others, that the usage is indeed rejected today by many, even though there are people using it in published books:

------
Innovations in youth job training: hearing before the Subcommittee on ...‎ - Page 28 (http://books.google.com/books?id=EkA2AAAAIAAJ&q=%22did+was+cleaning%22&dq=%22did+was+cleaning%22&lr=)

by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Labor and Human Resources. Subcommittee on Employment and Training - Education (http://books.google.com/books?q=+subject:%22Education%22&lr=) - 1997 - 77 pages

And one of the community service projects we did was cleaning up on a site that
I wound up working on later on.
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Power to change: family case studies in the treatment of alcoholism‎ - Page 140 (http://books.google.com/books?id=GntHAAAAMAAJ&q=%22did+was+cleaning%22&dq=%22did+was+cleaning%22&lr=)

by Edward Kaufman - Psychology (http://books.google.com/books?q=+subject:%22Psychology%22&lr=) - 1984 - 316 pages

Yet, the hardest thing we did was cleaning out her room.
------


The stress of combat: the combat of stress : caring strategies towards ex ...‎ - Page 96 (http://books.google.com/books?id=-J0IpZ8p7IAC&pg=PA96&dq=%22did+was+cleaning%22&lr=)

by Roy Brook - Psychology (http://books.google.com/books?q=+subject:%22Psychology%22&lr=) - 1999 - 318 pages

... Austin factory in Birmingham but all he ever did was cleaning cars before
they left the works.
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God Space: From All about Me to All about Thee‎ - Page 79 (http://books.google.com/books?id=fqkP6-MJYeAC&pg=PA79&dq=%22did+was+cleaning%22&lr=)

by Tompaul Wheeler - Religion (http://books.google.com/books?q=+subject:%22Religion%22&lr=) - 2007 - 378 pages

No, the nastiest work l ever did was cleaning tables in the academy cafeteria
when l was 16 years old.
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[Marius Hancu]

I think this reference is clear re a very similar structure:

----------
Swan's Practical English Usage. I have the third edition, and here's what is written -- in its entirety -- in section 130.3 under emphasizing verbs: What he did was...

• When we want to emphasize a verb (or an expression beginning with a verb), we have to use a more complicated structure with what...do. Infinitives with and without to are possible.

He SCREAMED.
What he did was (to) scream.
She WRITES SCIENCE FICTION.
What she does is (to) write science fiction.

Instead of an infinitive, we often use subject + verb in an informal style.
What she does is, she writes science fiction.
What I'll do is, I'll phone John and ask his advice.
_______

There is no mention in his explanation of a gerund construction.

http://thegrammarexchange.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/340600179/m/98510416
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Thus, no cleaning, but both clean/to clean work.