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Which is correct 1

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audiopro

Programmer
Apr 1, 2004
3,165
GB
We are having a debate in the office today and we need some outside help.
Which is correct - or is there some better wording we can use?

If you have any questions regarding this order please do not hesitate in contacting us.

If you have any questions regarding this order please do not hesitate to contact us.

Keith
 
Out of the two, I would opt for the latter.

"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area" - Major Mike Shearer
 
If you take into consideration how customer relationships could handles questions, in both cases the NOT is the error.

Bye, Olaf.
 
Ditto

DataDog [pc2]
If God wanted us to count in Hexadecimal, then why did he only give us A fingers?
 
I think both are valid English, but the second sounds more natural/familiar.

Searching Google for "do not hesitate in contacting us" gets 20 thousand hits, "do not hesitate to contact us" gets 3 million.

Of course, you may want not to follow the crowd...

-- Chris Hunt
Webmaster & Tragedian
Extra Connections Ltd
 
The question revolves around the issue of gerunds vs. infinitives as objects. In this case, the verb is 'hesitate' and that calls for the infinitive. The second option is the only valid option.

Although gerunds and infinitives may both function as the object of a verb, they are not generally interchangeable. In this case, since hesitate refers to a future action, then you must use the infinitive. Had the verb referred to a past action, then the correct form would be the gerund. "He showed no hesitation in contacting us."

I will say that it's not always that simple, but generally speaking verbs which refer to past actions take gerunds and those to future actions take infinitives.

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Cajun
That was a lot more complicated than I first imagined but thanks for the insight.
You would have a field day with our local paper who seem to think that grammar and correct spelling are out of date.

Keith
 
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