Hi MGMAT Staff,

I was reviewing the MGMAT - Sentence Correction and noted a few questions about idioms that I was hoping to clarify.

Are the following always unidiomatic?

1. I decided on attending the party. ("decided on")

2. John is often perceived to be the strongest athlete. ("perceived to be")

3. I regard Mary to be my best friend. ("regard...to be")

4. I had a dispute about the price. ("dispute about")

Thanks for your help.

Guest

1. yes, always wrong; I could, though, say "I decided based on" or "I decided based upon" - but, of course, I just changed the idiom there.
2. I think this one has to be "perceive as" but "perceive to be" is so common in the language that I'm not even sure anymore! I'll ask our curriculum director.
3. yes, always wrong
4. no, not always wrong - the form in the book is using "dispute" as a verb. I disputed whether she had done the work properly. You used dispute as a noun - different situation.

"Perceive X as Y" definitely has evidence for it in the grammar literature: see The Columbia Guide to Standard American English, http://www.bartleby.com/68/9/4509.html. However, I can't declare "perceive X to be Y" definitively wrong. None of our grammar references definitively comes down on one side or the other. Moreover, the GMAT is its own authority on the general issue of this sort of verb: for instance, several sources say that "consider X to be Y" is acceptable (e.g., the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language), but the GMAT definitely prefers "consider X Y," saying that the "to be" is unnecessarily wordy (see 11th edition, #115).

In general, there are 3 possible structures for verbs that equate two objects:
1) Nothing between: I pronounce YOU MY SUCCESSOR. First object = YOU. Second object = MY SUCCESSOR.
2) AS between: I designate YOU AS MY SUCCESSOR.
3) TO BE between: I declare YOU TO BE MY SUCCESSOR.

It's VERY complicated (and idiomatic) which verbs can take which of these 3 structures -- some can take more than one. We'll keep searching for the precise ways that the GMAT interprets this idiomatic area. In the meantime, trust your ear -- and post your questions! Hope this is helpful.