paraphrasing

Question

In the sentence: ...llegaba a la puerta en achaque de comprar huevos -

(....he used to come to the door pretending to buy eggs)

If one substituted the word achaque with pretexto, would it be "en pretexto" or "con pretexto" ?

Also, using fingir as a gerund, should it be ........fingiendo de comprar huevos or fingiendo a comprar huevos ?

Answer 1

Pretexto

The correct way of using pretexto is this:

[.....con el pretexto de comprar huevos]

.

However, if you're gonna use pretexto, in my opinion, you'd have to add: [... con el pretexto de querer comprar huevos]

OR

[.....diciendo que queria comprar huevos como pretexto]

.

I know, it's hard to understand, but if you think of "pretexto" as "excuse"...

You wouldn't say

[he use to come to the door buying eggs as an excuse]

You would say

[he used to come to the door saying that he wanted to buy some eggs as an excuse]

Answer 2

Llegaba a mi puerta con el pretexto de querer comprar huevos.

Llegaba a mi puerta fingiendo querer comprar huevos.