Urth Digest, Vol 59, Issue 24
The Urth list — 3 messages, 3 voices, 30 Jul 2009
https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5475

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Robin Dunn — 30 Jul 2009, 21:25

The wikipedia article sites a number of sources, as in this 1:

^ Walsh, Bill (2000). Contemporary Books. ed. Lapsing into a comma : a
curmudgeon?s guide to the many things that can go wrong in print and
how to avoid them. Lincolnwood, Illinois: Contemporary Books. pp.
112?113. ISBN 0809225352.


in this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_infinitive#cite_note-Walsh112-1


I too learned that 19th century grammarians introduced the skepticism
regarding the split infinitive.  To my mind, it's not unlike the large
number of words lifted directly from Latin and deposited in the
English vocabulary in the 16th and 17th centuries as part of the
Enlightenment's fascination with the ancient world.  Anything Latinate
had to be better than anything Anglo-Saxon.

The same can be said for words of French origin - as the language of
the ruling class in England, it's words were seen as higher culture
and therefore more preferable to the Anglo-Saxon roots.

As a usage question, that's exactly what it comes down to:  how do
people actually speak and write?

Our rules are like laws, they change over time, and rules are made to
be broken.

To my mind, if a split infinitive severely hampers a sentence's
clarity, it should be rewritten.  Otherwise it's 100% kosher.

Them's my two cents.

-Robin Dunn

> On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 2:11 PM, <urth-request at lists.urth.net> wrote:
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> ? 1. Re: ?OT: split infinitive [was Re: torturing BTQ] (Milton Jackson)
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:29:02 -0400
> From: Milton Jackson <miltonwjackson at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: (urth) OT: split infinitive [was Re: torturing BTQ]

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Daniel D Jones — 30 Jul 2009, 23:05
  in reply to Robin Dunn

> On Thursday 30 July 2009 21:25:13 Robin Dunn wrote:
> Our rules are like laws, they change over time, and rules are made to
> be broken.
> 
> To my mind, if a split infinitive severely hampers a sentence's
> clarity, it should be rewritten.  Otherwise it's 100% kosher.
> 
> Them's my two cents.

I must disagree.  Split infinitives are something up with which I will not put.


Dan


PS:  :-)

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David Duffy — 31 Jul 2009, 02:47
  in reply to Robin Dunn

> On Thu, 30 Jul 2009, Robin Dunn wrote:
> To my mind, if a split infinitive severely hampers a sentence's
> clarity, it should be rewritten.  Otherwise it's 100% kosher.

to boldly split...

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