Q: More and more, I am hearing people say “not trying to” when they mean “trying not to.” I just saw a woman on YouTube who said, “I wasn’t trying to take any chances.” What’s your take on this?
A: The phrase “not trying to” means lacking the intention or desire to do something, while “trying not to” means actively making an effort to avoid doing something. Both usages are legitimate. Yes, people sometimes use “not trying to” in the sense of “trying not to,” but the meaning is usually clear in context.
One possible reason for the mixup may be that many Americans pronounce “trying to” as “tryna,” and it may be more natural for them to say “not tryna” than “trying not to,” especially in informal conversation.
By the way, the You Tuber you cite could have been using “not trying to” in its usual sense if she had been accused of being reckless and responded by saying “I wasn’t trying to take any chances.”
Interestingly, “not trying to” was more common during the 20th century, but “trying not to” has been more popular in the 21st century, according to Google’s Ngram Viewer, which compares the use of words and phrases in digitized books. As for “trying to not,” it’s a distant third.
A spot check of 21st-century examples suggests people generally use “not trying to” and “trying not to” in the usual way. Here are a couple of examples from book titles: Mother Nature Is Not Trying to Kill You (2002), a wilderness survival guide by Rob Nelson and Haley Chamberlain Nelson, and Trying Not to Love You (2026), a novel by Kaylee Ryan.
As for the etymology, the English verb “try” is derived from the Old French trier (to pick out or choose). When it first appeared in Middle English in the early 14th century, it meant “to separate (one thing) from another or others,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary.
In the earliest OED citation, victorious Britons separate themselves on the battlefield from the defeated Romans: “Þey turnde ageyn, And tryde þe Bretons fro ilk Romeyn” (“They turned back, And tried [separated] the Britons from each Roman”). From Robert Mannyng’s Middle English translation (circa 1330) of Roman de Brut, a 12-century verse history of Britain by the Norman poet Wace.
The separating sense of “try” is now obsolete, but it’s reflected in several modern senses, including the legal use of to “try” someone, which the OED defines as “to determine the guilt or otherwise of (an accused person) by consideration of the evidence.”
The dictionary’s first citation for this sense is from a Latin-English dictionary: “Interrogari legibus, to be tried by examination, that they had offended against the lawis” (The Dictionary of Syr Thomas Eliot Knyght, 1538).
The earliest OED citation for the sense you’re asking about (“to make an effort, endeavour, attempt”) is from Dryden’s 1697 translation of Virgil’s Georgics (Book III), a poem about animal husbandry written in the first century BC.
In this passage a defeated bull attempts to recover for a second round with the bull that defeated him: “to repair his Strength he tries: Hardning his Limbs with painful Exercise.”
Finally, the participial adjective “trying” in the title of this post (“Trying times”) is derived from the use of the verb “try” to mean “subject to a severe test or strain.”
The earliest OED citation for this sense of “try” refers to the persecution of Old Testament prophets: “Other were tried wt mockynges & scourgynges, moreouer, wt bondes & presonment.” From The Byble in Englyshe (1539), Hebrews 11:36.
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