When I spoke with a friend of mine, I had noticed she used sentences similar to "I need to go buy food."
Is it correct to say "to go buy," or should I say "to go to buy"?
I know that I could say "I need to buy food," but I think that in "I need to go buy food," who is speaking is putting in evidence s/he needs to go and that s/he cannot stay any longer, or that her/his time to stay is limited.
Answer
Go VERB is a colloquialism employed (apparently only in the US) to impart a little extra sense of energy and purpose to the plain VERB, as well as to indicate that VERB entails departure from the immediate situation.
It is employed only in the infinitive, never a finite or participial form. You would not say:
✲He goes buy food.
✲They went buy food.
✲We are going buy food.
✲They have gone buy food.
It is thus used with modal or semi-modal verbs, or as a complement or adjunct of purpose with lexical verbs, and invariably implies a future performance:
If you like, I can go get the dry cleaning now.
I would go gas up the car if I could find my keys.
John told Mary to go find the children.
Bill said he was going to go look up the address.
I'm putting on my coat right now to go shovel the snow off the driveway.
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