The phrase “be forced to infinitive” means to be made to do something that one does not want to do. The phrase can also be used to express the idea of being compelled to do something by external circumstances, even if one is not physically forced to do it.It is a passive voice construction.
In the English Grammar Profile, B2 point 151 in
MODALITY “be forced to’ is used to talk about an unnamed obligation, where the circumstances are beyond the control of the speaker/writer.
I was interested to see what some of the stand-out infinitives would be with this structure. On the iWeb corpus _vb* forced to _v?i* finds quite an even spread. Apart from the usual stop words (most common words). There is no doubt negativity associated with “forced to” and a sense of ending.
1 WAS FORCED TO LEAVE 2331
Further collocates 5 spaces either side of “was forced to leave”:
1 HE (PPHS1 ) 580
2 SHE (PPHS1 ) 270
3 GAME (NN1 ) 131
4 FAMILY (NN1 ) 102
5 SCHOOL (NN1 ) 100
6 COUNTRY (NN1 ) 95
7 DUE (II21 ) 77
8 FIELD (NN1 ) 54
9 BEHIND (RL@ ) 32
10 MOTHER (NN1 ) 23
From a sociolinguistic perspective, males seem to be twice as likely to be forced to leave somewhere. This can be guessed at in a variety of ways. Males tend to play more games on fields or be in the media playing sport. They could be injured or just “out” in cricket. They probably also get into more trouble at school (don’t quote me on this).
2 WAS FORCED TO RESIGN 2095
3 BE FORCED TO PAY 1996
4 WAS FORCED TO TAKE 1768
5 WERE FORCED TO LEAVE 1585
6 WAS FORCED TO MAKE 1504
7 BE FORCED TO TAKE 1440
8 BE FORCED TO USE 1295
9 WAS FORCED TO FLEE 1278
10 ARE FORCED TO USE 1245
11 BE FORCED TO DO 1232
12 WAS FORCED TO RETIRE 1220
13 BE FORCED TO MAKE 1196
14 ARE FORCED TO WORK 1176
15 WAS FORCED TO CLOSE 1117
16 ARE FORCED TO MAKE 1112
17 ARE FORCED TO LIVE 1093
18 WAS FORCED TO GO 1076
19 WAS FORCED TO WITHDRAW 1046
20 WERE FORCED TO FLEE 1040
21 ARE FORCED TO TAKE 1014
22 WAS FORCED TO GIVE 955
23 ARE FORCED TO PAY 927
24 WAS FORCED TO MOVE 919
25 ARE FORCED TO DO 898
26 WERE FORCED TO TAKE 898
27 WAS FORCED TO USE 888
28 IS FORCED TO MAKE 862
29 BE FORCED TO LEAVE 861
30 WERE FORCED TO WORK 860
31 BE FORCED TO GO 858
32 WERE FORCED TO MOVE 847
33 IS FORCED TO TAKE 830
34 WAS FORCED TO SELL 825
35 WAS FORCED TO PAY 823
36 WAS FORCED TO DO 820
37 BEING FORCED TO DO 780
38 WERE FORCED TO MAKE 736
39 BE FORCED TO SELL 735
40 ARE FORCED TO GO 729
41 BEEN FORCED TO LEAVE 712
42 BE FORCED TO MOVE 703
43 WAS FORCED TO ABANDON 678
Between rank 44 and 58 we find the verbs: RETURN, LIVE, PAY, FLEE, CLOSE, TAKE, USE, BE, STOP, ADMIT, PULL, LEAVE, CHANGE, MAKE, WORK.