alt Hacker News> regular coordination permits the order of conjuncts to be changed, while in (7) we see that the same is not possible with try and (De Vos 2005:59).
But sometimes conjunction implies sequential order or causation, right? Which seems related here. “I’m going to take a shower and get this dirt off me” or “I’m going to get some flour and bake a cake.” You can’t change the order. It doesn’t make sense to add both in those cases, either.
It’s also interesting about motion verbs, because I see “he came and picked me up at the station” as an example of two literal sequential actions, versus “he went and picked me up at the station” as more about emphasis, like he did something notable. Which could be good or bad: “he went and got himself arrested again.”
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> You can’t change the order.
You are confusing semantics with grammatical correctness. In both your examples, they would still be grammatically correct with reversed order.
(I would actually suggest they are still semantically reasonable too, but that's besides the point).
>I’m going to get some flour and bake a cake.
A group works together. One offers to get flour, another offers to bake the cake.
A third could offer, "I'm going to both get some flour and bake a cake."
It would make sense to use "both."
Funny how the same surface structure can be either neutral or judgment-loaded depending on the verb
The emphasis is a really interesting point and overlooked by the article. Your "went and" examples do seem very analogous to "try and". "He went and got himself arrested again," is less about the going and almost exclusively emphasizing the other half of the conjunction.
"Try and" can operate the same way by de-emphasizing the trying. If Dr. Dre said "I'm gonna try to change the course of hip hop again," the sentence is about attempting to do something. On the other hand, "try and" makes the sentence more assured- Dr Dre is going try it and then do it.
I wonder if this half about ordering, half about emphasizing is the reason for the special rules of usage.