"I shall try to explain my dilemma succinctly."
Or:
"I shall try and explain my dilemma succinctly."

My instinct is that the former is the more correct, but is it, and is the latter actually wrong or merely colloquial?

I know that I use the latter occasionally in speech.

G

This is one of my grammar bugbears, Gaius.

The first is correct, because to try 'and' do something implies that you will be successful. If you knew you were going to be successful, you would not begin 'I will try'.

That's how I see it, anyway.

Jan

As I read it:
Shall I try to... would be gramatically correct
Shall I try and... would be colloquial

Wot they said.

More specifically, explain my dilemma is qualifying try. If you use and instead of to, you're not explaining what you're trying.

The use of and is spoken and understood colloquially, but looks wrong on the page.

Confused now?

Dee

Yes, I'd feel that "try to" is formal and "try and" informal, so it would depend entirely on the voice which you used.

Having said that, Fowler isn't nearly so definite about it, since looking at actual usuage, he says, doesn't reveal any clear-cut rule: "Try and is an idiom that should not be discountenanced but used when it comes naturally...it should be noted that some of the examples of 'try and' are drawn from the informal atmosphere of the lecture room, newspaper interview or non-British sources."

He also points out that other verbs are sometimes connected with 'and' when logically the second verb should be in the infinitive:

"You came and saw me yesterday" "He went and thanked him last week."

but unlike these, "try" doesn't work with other parts of the verb: "he tries and centres his mind on..." "I paced around and tried to absorb all..."

Emma

Confused now?

Certainly was for a moment or two, though the logic made sense.

"You came and saw me yesterday" "He went and thanked him last week."

I think those examples explained it because they both clunked as I read them until I inserted a missing subject;

"You came and (you) saw me yesterday" and "He went and (he) thanked him last week."
As opposed to:
"You came to see me yesterday" "He went to thank him last week."

Moreover, doing that for the first one makes Jan's point on meaning and Dee's on the missing qualifier overt;
"I shall try and (I shall) explain my dilemma succinctly."