Is "going to go for it" okay?

[Kire]

As in the NASCAR Dads aren't "going to go for" Biotech Lab Meat if it doesn't taste good? Is that proper english?

[madeline_con]

1. Yes, if used around NASCAR Dads....

just kidding. It sounds perfectly acceptable.

[julianer]

2. Nothing wrong with that, IMO

Isn't that the simple future tense? Very common in both English and French.

I'm no grammarian, though.

[evermind]

3. Why not just "won't go for ..."? (nt)

[petgoat]

4. Proper? It all depends on the effect you want.

If you're writing about NASCAR dads, maybe an informal vernacular tone
is exactly what you want.

On the other hand the repetition of "going to go" really sticks out.

I'd say lay out the alternatives, and pick the one that fits your intentions.

I'll use natural spoken-word sloppiness in characters' dialogue, but I
try to avoid it in authorial narration.

Here "go" has two meanings, and they're both different from the usual uses of "go."

"Are they going to" "go for it"? means

"Will they" "like it"?

When you say "I'm going to get a beer" you usually mean you are
literally traveling to the refrigerator or the store.

When you say "I'm going to be thirty years old next July" you're not
talking about physical traveling.

The phrase "go for it" in its most common incarnation means "to
undertake a risky quest" or "to strive for a goal".

I feel that when someone reads "going to go for it" they have to do a
lot of mental processing to make sense of the phrase. They have to
retranslate both those uses of "go" from a physical verb to a
metaphor, and recognize that "go for it" here means "like it"
and not "quest". Obviously this is something we all do every day, so
maybe it's not objectionable.

In my own linguistic/fictional aesthetic I quest for maximum
efficiency in communication, and so I would normally reject phrases
like "going to go for it" as potentially fatiguing to the reader. But
in certain contexts--in dialogue, or in a piece where the narrative
style reflects a certain character or subculture, it would be exactly
the right phrase.

So it all depends. IMHO

(So I'm busted--I'm the kind of guy that sits around on a Saturday
afternoon thinking about what words mean and how.)

[evermind]

5. then how does "aren't about to go for ..." sound? ;-) (n/t)

[petgoat]

6. "aren't about to go for"

My reaction to that, which is only my own, would be exactly the same
as for "aren't going to go for".

It might be exactly the right phrase for exactly the tone you want,
which depends largely on what kind of personality and how much
personality you want to give the narrator. But...it has the same
problems in terms of requiring translation from the literal meaning of
the words, since "aren't about to go for" means "aren't soon to travel
to get" rather than "won't like".

Maybe I'm all wet, but my theory is that we're trying to use these
little squiggles on paper or the screen to communicate pictures and
happenings and feelings and ideas to other people, and we ought to
introduce as few impediments as possible in seeking the goal of
presenting what John Gardner calls "a vivid and continuous dream."
We're competing with TV and movies after all--which have their own
glaring limitations, but have few impediments.

Of course the brain processing takes milliseconds, so one could argue
that it's a completely impractical concern. My answer has two
aspects; the first is that I want to make my work accessible to people
for whom English is a second language. English has become the
international language, and so all of us writing in English should be
seeking in our explorations of universal truths to serve an
international audience. Colorful colloquialisms can certainly be used
when needed for artistic effect, but that's not to say they should be
used when they're unnecessary.

The second aspect is that I prefer that my prose be as rational and
transparent as possible--to aid the transmission of the "vivid and
continuous" dream. This is not to say that colloquialisms can't be
used in first-person narratives or dialog, or that all my characters
must be rational, or that I must restrict my choice of subject matter
in any way.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez said "If you say that there are elephants
flying in the sky, people are not going to believe you. But if you say
that there are four hundred and twenty-five elephants in the sky,
people will probably believe you.” A transparent and objective and
completely rational narrative style aids credibility. Again if your
purpose is to convey the personality of the narrator, then
colloquialisms serve that purpose. But a subjective narrator loses
credibility. People are watching the narrator, not experiencing the
dream.

So endeth the lesson. Sorry for being such a pontificator, but I'm
just kind of "thinking out loud" here about some stuff I've mused
about in isolation, and I'd like to get some debunking or
reinforcement.