Is the construction "It allows to ..." proper English? [duplicate]

I frequently encounter phrases like this: "It allows to apply these features to customisable sets of fonts".

My question is whether this is proper English or not? In my mind, "it allows the application of ..." or "it allows one to apply ..." sound much better.

I suspect that this is a Germanism (that would explain why I hear it so often), but it would be nice to know for sure.

Solution 1:

I just ran a Google Books ngram and saw that from 1800-2012 the incidence of It allows to has risen from 0.0000011% to 0.0000053%. The biggest rise was from 1980 until now: 0.000002%-0.0000053%. From what I can tell from the books in which this appears, the most recent are technical writing by non-native-speakers of English. A couple from the 19th century are legitimate English:

the assembly may compel the observance of a proper decorum by all persons, whom it allows to be present at its proceedings.

and

It assembles more frequently, and at its own time, without any control from the king ; and it allows to him only a ...

Jim's example, It allows to pass certain particles while trapping others, is certainly, as he says, unwieldy because it's not parallel:

It allows to pass certain particles and {allows not / disallows} others.

which is a style monster regardless of the parallel construction. It should be:

It allows certain particles to pass {while trapping / but traps / but disallows} others.

The syntax is so bad in that sentence that, however grammatically valid it is, Fowler would retch after reading it. Merely thinking it up would violate the admonition against secret sin in the Sermon on the Mount, and actually writing it for public consumption would cause the reader as much pain as would driving a wooden stake through the heart of the sleeping Dracula cause the vampire.

Your conclusion that "'it allows the application of ...' or 'it allows one to apply ...' sound much better" is absolutely correct. That's what language is about in part: what it sounds like. If it sounds bad, it is bad, grammar be damned.

Solution 2:

The "allow to + verb" construction is something I encounter practically every day when editing English written by Germans who have been told in school that "ermöglichen" (to make possible) should be translated as "to allow to", without being given the whole story that the full phrase is "to allow somebody/something to do something". The weird thing is that, in German, "ermöglichen" takes either a direct object in the form of an impersonal accusative noun - "es ermöglicht einen Wandel" (it makes a change possible / it allows a change) - or an indirect object in the dative - "es ermöglicht ihm, das zu tun" (it makes it possible for/it allows him to do that) - or, as an ellision of the latter: "es ermöglicht, das zu tun" (it makes it possible to do that) without stating who is to do whatever is to be done. A classic case of impersonal German stating what is to be done but not by whom. Teachers of English in Germany often do not consciously understand these distinctions themselves and so cannot explain the problems direct transposition of these German constructions can cause in English.

The French also have the "permet de faire" (verb + verb / allows to do) construction. This lack of accountability cannot be expressed so succinctly in English. We have to use different constructions.