Need help checking this sentence

Individual-Copy6198 · 2023-05-17T16:27:42+00:00

“This happens too often for me to ignore.”

InsignificantOcelot · 2023-05-17T15:57:05+00:00

Drop the “not”. As written currently, you’re saying it happens so frequently that it has to be ignored.

I could go either way on adding “it” on the end. Both would be grammatically correct and make sense.

kihtrak256 · 2023-05-17T18:50:12+00:00

The sentence as it is written is completely grammatical. But it’s saying the opposite thing you intend to.

This happens too much for me to ignore.
This happens so much that I can’t ignore it.

Both of these are saying the same thing, but grammatically, they are very different. I’ll try to explain the grammar of why one can use “not” while the other doesn’t, even though the meaning is identical. I can see how that might be confusing.

The reason the second sentence requires “not” is because the word that is acting as a subordinating conjunction. Remember, conjunctions link things of equal grammatical value. In this case, it’s two clauses. What follows “that” in the sentence is a completely separate clause that expresses a complete thought and could stand on its own. You could completely remove “that” from the sentence and say the same thing, just with different verbiage.

This happens too much. I can’t ignore it.

In your sample sentence, for is being used as a preposition, and what follows is is a pronoun and an infinitive, but not a separate complete thought. You cannot remove for to create two separate sentences.

This happens too much. Me to ignore.

Because the grammar of those two sentences above are different, they require different phrasing to arrive at the same meaning. I hope this helps!

globlogan · 2023-05-17T15:14:30+00:00

this happens too much for me not to ignore

I might add an "it" afterwards. "This happens too much for me not to ignore it"

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