Savoir comment

Question

Looking at this sentence - 'je sais comment pousser les gens à bout' - I am wondering why the word comment is there? I am used to seeing savoir followed directly by the infinitive.

Accepted Answer

Bonjour Tom,
This is a really interesting question, Tom! It has also caused a bit of a debate in the language team ;-)
As Maarten mentioned in his reply, both "savoir comment + [verb]" and "savoir + [verb]" are commonly used in French although "comment" is usually implicit and does not need to be included in the phrase. 
And yet, there is a difference between "savoir comment + [verb]" and "savoir + [verb]": 
"savoir comment + [verb]" implies "knows how to specifically" whilst "savoir + [verb]" implies "can do it".
We have now accepted both in this case so as to avoid any ambiguity. 
I hope this is helpful.
Bonne journée !

Answer

Despite it ‘not being necessary’, and ‘incorrect’ according to Laura Lawless (link below), I have come across the usage of ‘savoir comment ….’ quite a number of times in writing and speech in some French language courses online, and have heard it in everyday speech by native speakers. I can only conclude that it is at least in familiar use in everyday language and therefore acceptable and ‘correct’ by descriptive rules of grammar, but not by prescriptive rules. https://www.lawlessfrench.com/grammar/savoir-vs-connaitre/

Answer

Adding to Maarten's answer, I'd suggest that there is a slight difference in meaning:

savoir comment pousser les gens à bout. -- knowing how to push people's buttons
savoir pousser les gens à bout. -- knowing to push people's buttons.

Answer

Chris, Laura specifically notes that the ‘how’ is implicit with use of (savoir-infinitive) and that “comment-infinitive” should therefore not follow savoir. I think that is the basis of Tom asking about its use here.