Word Usage – Can ‘Miss’ Be Used Instead of ‘Forget’?

verbsword-usage

Today one of my coworkers sent an email saying:

Dear X, Please don't miss to send Y's laptop to the support today.

I kindly replied to him alone saying that it should've been:

Dear X, Please don't forget* …

He told me that "miss" can be used in this context. Well my English isn't perfect, hence my question:

Is the word miss usable in that context?

Best Answer

The Oxford English Dictionary includes this usage under miss, v.1 II.5.a, but marks it archaic:

trans. To fail (to do something). With gerund, infinitive (now arch.), or (occasionally in Middle English) that-clause as object.

The construction seems to be alive and well in Indian English, either as a survival of the archaic construction or as an independent innovation; "don't miss to" gets plenty of Google-hits, many of them obviously Indian in origin.

Whether you consider it "usable" will probably depend on whether you're OK with using archaic constructions and/or Indian English. If not — e.g., if you want to sound like a native speaker — then you should avoid it.

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