Learn English – What should follow “cause” (the verb)

phrase-requestphrases

I wrote the following sentence, but I am not sure it is correct.

All the moderators asking for blacklisting a tag would not probably cause the tag being blacklisted.

Is it correct to use the tag being blacklisted after cause? In Italian, where I could not use a noun as a verb*, I would probably say causerebbe l'aggiunta del tag alla lista dei tag bloccati (which is roughly equivalent to would cause the addition of the tag to the list of the blocked tags). The equivalent phrase in English seems too long, even when I replace to the list of the blocked tags with to the blacklist.

What is a more correct way of rephrasing that sentence?

* What I mean is that, for example, the Italian translation of list as noun is lista (or elenco); in English list is also the bare infinite of a verb, but in Italian the infinite of the verb would be elencare (not listare), since the infinite always ends in -are, -ere, or -ire.

Best Answer

In this construction, cause takes three complements:

  1. subject
  2. object
  3. to-infinitival clause

Compare the following examples:

He caused it to rain.　 　 　( He1 causedverb it2 [ to rain ]3. )

*He caused it raining.　　　( He1 causedverb it2 *raining3. )

The former is fine, but the latter is ungrammatical. The third complement must be a to-infinitival clause, not a gerund.

In your example, the tag is fine. But being blacklisted is a gerund, so it doesn't work as the third complement.

Here's one way to rephrase your sentence:

Even if all the moderators asked for a tag to be blacklisted, it would probably not cause it to be blacklisted.

Here, I think the repetition of to be blacklisted is slightly unnatural, but I left it in because it's part of the construction we're discussing. I think I would personally phrase it like this:

Even if all the moderators asked for a tag to be blacklisted, it probably wouldn't happen.

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