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Using "be going" infinitve. I think we don't use that infinitve because it is quite often just to verbose like

She seems to be going to go to work

It is correct but clunky. So, do you agree that natives don't really use that infinitve because it is longish?

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    What are you trying to say? That might be where to start.
    – Jack O'Flaherty
    Commented Aug 22 at 23:51
  • It's not to be going that is too verbose, but the combination going to go - which is sometimes used in colloquial speech but can sound clunky in sentences like yours. There's nothing wrong with "She seems to be going crazy".
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Aug 23 at 8:12
  • @KateBunting would you consider my example grammatically correct yet just to longish and unnatural?
    – Adam
    Commented Aug 23 at 8:14
  • Depends what you mean by 'grammatically correct'! As I said, going to go is very informal - it's 'correct' in that people say it in real life ("I'm gonna go and get an ice cream"), but even in casual speech your example sounds awkward to me.
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Aug 23 at 8:24
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    Of course it does - I've already told you that the problem was not with to be going to but with going to go.
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Aug 23 at 9:37

2 Answers 2

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She seems to be going to go to work

This sentence is odd because "seems" indicates you're making a judgment based on what you've observed, and "going to go to..." requires you know somebody's plans, not just their current actions.

(Correct) I might be going to go see a concert on Saturday.
(Mostly the same) I might see a concert on Saturday.

You can shorten the first sentence without changing the meaning much, but it's a natural-sounding sentence.

In spoken English (particularly AmE) "going to go to the" is often heavily reduced to something like "gonna g'd'the". (In line with other reductions for short, unstressed words.) So when speaking, it's not as long as it is in writing.

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I'm sure this expression and others that are like it have lots of use in various spoken expressions. But as the same idea can be expressed differently, why bother?

Long expressions have many functions in any language. They give the speaker time to think, they can act as "padding", they can make an expression more tentative and so more polite. They can use simpler words. That's why you get lots of long expressions and unnecessary words in spoken English.

So there's no rule that one always uses the shortest expression.

But in this case, the extra words don't help. They aren't padding, like "Well...", they don't add any politeness, and they don't simplify the vocabulary. There is an easy way to avoid them, and given the chance most speakers will use easy language when speaking.

So not because it is shorter, but because it is easier.

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