Oxford documents arrange + to-infinitive and arrange for + noun/pronoun + to-infinitive, alongside ordinary transitive uses of “arrange.” These patterns distinguish who is to act without requiring a bare gerund complement.
ReviewedEvidence2 sourcesSectionEnglish Usage
Quick answer
Use “arrange to do” when making plans for your own following action. For another person or thing, use patterns such as “arrange for someone to do”; do not treat bare “arrange doing” as the same construction.
Key details
Confusion Familygrammar-and-usage distinction
Rule Familyverb complement pattern
TermsArrange Doing, Arrange To Do
Further guidance
Decision
Choose arrange to do when the subject makes plans to perform the action; use arrange for … to do when the arranged actor is expressed separately.
For Pattern
Use arrange for + someone/something + to-infinitive when organizing that another person or thing will perform the action.
To Infinitive
Use arrange + to-infinitive for a planned action by the grammatical subject.
Sources and evidence
Sources are shown with the role they play in this guide. Historical or style-sensitive claims are kept within the evidence boundary described above.
Cambridge documents both admit + -ing and admit to + -ing for acknowledging something. Other passive patterns such as “be admitted to be” are separate constructions.
Both patterns are standard. “Advise waiting” recommends an action generally or in context, while “advise him to wait” names the person who is advised to perform it. A that-clause is another standard option.
When “afford” is followed directly by another verb, standard learner references use a to-infinitive: “afford to do.” An -ing form can appear elsewhere in a sentence, but it is not a like-for-like direct complement after “afford.”
“Agree to do” expresses consent to take an action. An -ing form normally follows a preposition in patterns such as “agree with doing,” which expresses approval rather than the direct promise-to-act construction.
Cambridge documents aim + to-infinitive for intention and aim at for directing effort toward an objective. Do not omit the preposition and present bare “aim doing” as equivalent to “aim to do.”
“Allow” can take an activity as its object, as in “allow smoking,” or a person/thing followed by a to-infinitive, as in “allow visitors to enter.” The patterns answer different structural questions: what is allowed versus who is allowed to do what.
