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I'm doing a test from a Cambridge book. There's a sentence that reads like this:

Children need to learn to accept the consequences of to their actions.

Is the preposition "to" in above sentence needed? Is it correct to have it?

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  • Are you by any chance looking at this test, there or elsewhere? You should be warned that it contains many errors and unidiomatic expressions.
    – StoneyB on hiatus
    May 20, 2013 at 15:33
  • Yes, it is exactly same test that I'm doing, although mine is from a Cambridge book. It's the first time that I see there are errors from an authoritative publisher. Thanks for your warning, I'll be more careful about it. Here is a really good place to confirm it when I'm not sure.
    – canoe
    May 21, 2013 at 2:52

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No. It's superfluous. Unnecessary. Not only that, it's wrong and ungrammatical to use both of and to in the sentence. You should only use one or the other.

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  • Is it wrong to include it?
    – canoe
    May 20, 2013 at 13:29
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    Note that "to" would be valid in constructions such as You must accept that there are consequences to your actions, but you'd have to settle for one preposition or the other. It's not just "superfluous" to use both - it's totally ungrammatical.
    – FumbleFingers
    May 20, 2013 at 13:38
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    I'd say worse than superfluous: it's wrong. It's not optional, it shouldn't be there at all.
    – Jay
    May 20, 2013 at 14:25
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    Tristan, would you mind editing your answer to add that the construction isn't simply superfluous, but wrong and ungrammatical? Failing that, @FumbleFingers, I'd post a separate answer with that example and explanation if I were you; though the comment here explains what's lacking in the answer, I'm afraid not everyone in the future will read them (and I'm not entirely comfortable that the only answer to the question refers to a completely incorrect construction as simply "superfluous"). Thoughts, everyone?
    – WendiKidd
    May 20, 2013 at 20:40
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    @WendiKidd: I'm inclined to agree. I neither up- nor down-voted this answer. As of now, my comment has 6 votes, but this answer itself only 3. I'll post an answer making clear that "superfluous" and "unnecessary" are not suitable characterisations. Come to that, "No" is a rather simplistic answer when the reality it "Either, but not both. Oh - and one of the two is 10 times more common than the other".
    – FumbleFingers
    May 20, 2013 at 21:26
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In most such contexts, native speakers overwhelmingly use of...

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...but it's worth noting that the red line on the bottom isn't completely flat - here are a couple of thousand written instances of forms such as You must accept that there are consequences to your actions.

That's to say, of is standard and very much preferred, but to is equally grammatical (though far less common). OP's use of both together is not at all grammatical/acceptable to native speakers.

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