you wouldn't know it to see it vs "you wouldn't recognize it to see it"?

Question

Is it more correct to say, "you wouldn't know it to see it" or "you wouldn't recognize it to see"? I have tried looking both up on google, and only the first return's actual usage. Also, the formulation of "you wouldn't know it" + "to see it". Is there something special about this construction, it seems odd. I feel that it works in the first example but wouldn't work if I were to apply it formulaically, for example, "You wouldn't eat it to taste it". However, I might be wrong about that.

Answer 1

These expressions do not show popular usage. The first one should be: "You wouldn't know it if you see it" and the second one should be "You wouldn't recognize it if you see it."

Answer 2

This (in both the first and second form) is a shortened way of saying "If you don't recognize [something] you will not be able to identify it." If you saw a chicken, but had never heard of or seen a chicken before, you would not be able to identify it as a chicken. In so far as the construction is concerned it may sound a bit odd, but formulaically, in the the example you gave, it actually would work. The example was "You wouldn't eat it to taste it." An example of this working is the following conversation:

"The thought of eating Seafood, of any sort, has always made me want to vomit. Disgusting!" Amelia said.

"You wouldn't eat it to taste it. I think it's delicious." Joe said.

I believe that both of the examples given in your question are technically correct. I would, personally, chose the word "know" if I were talking about something more abstract like a "good idea", but I would use the word recognize if I were referring to something more concrete like a specific type of car.