There is no such phrase as ‘try and’. No one tries and to do something. It’s try to. Try and is grammatically incorrect.
In a sentence the main verb is Try, but another verb comes after the And, so you have two actions. You’re trying AND doing something else. When you’re trying to do something, you’re not doing it, so you have two parts of a sentence, one of which isn’t complete. A person can’t try AND do a thing at the same time. You can try to (make the attempt), or you can do (in which case the thing is being done). You cannot be trying and doing simultaneously.
To help break such a sentence down.
I’m going to try and get my aunt to take me with her on holiday.
I’m going to try and run a marathon.
Try and get me some vegetables while you’re down at the shop.
I’m going to try is a statement of itself. To grammarians, it reads as though part of the sentence is missing.
I’m going to try (to), and get my aunt to take me with her on holiday.
I’m going to try (to), and run a marathon.
Try (to), and get me some vegetables while you’re down at the shop.
None of these make sense, so something is missing. The and is a cursor to another action. You’re going to try to (what?), AND you’re doing something.
I’m going to try to (save for a break), and get my aunt to take me with her on holiday.
I’m going to try to (take up exercise), and run a marathon.
Try to (remember your chores) and get me some vegetables while you’re down at the shop.
Some people will argue that try and is simply informal speech, and therefore acceptable sometimes. To a point I agree, but not because of the reasons many of those sites specify.
If seen in a book (I feel) it would be just about okay in dialogue or if a book is written in close first person point of view, where we’re hearing a more casual rhythm of someone’s natural speech in the narrative; however, when you listen to people saying this, a good portion of those (I argue) aren’t even saying try and. It’s more abbreviated even than that. It’s try ’n’.
Simply put, it takes more effort to say try to, and over time and (I’m sure) owing to dialects being shortened to more of a sound than anything else. The ‘to’ is shortened the way people say gonna, instead of going to.
I’m going to try’n go out. I’m going to try’n buy that jacket. These are simply lazy ways of saying try to.
When I see try and in narrative, I’m with the grammarians who argue it’s wrong because it pulls me out of a story. But I might use it in dialogue because speech should sound natural. But editors will spot this, and many will correct the writer or at least question this. Worse case, they’ll feel the author cannot grasp the correct use of grammar.
