No need to be driven insane. Consider that in all of human language, there is nothing more than a vague, fluid boundary between noun and verb. Much of our grammatical tradition has its roots in the study of Latin and Greek, both of which happen to demarcate verbs with distinct endings. But even Latin and Greek could create verbs from nouns on the fly. When English does it, there’s usually no change in form in the infinitive, as there would be for a Romance language, say. But the noun → verb process is no less legitimate than it would be for any other language.
Hey bordelond! Don’t try to sway us with facts, logic, and scholarly erudition! We’re fanatics on a holy war and will brook no opposition, no matter how sensible it is! If we want to be insane, you can’t stop us! Death to the language infidels!
Style follows meaning.
Just this afternoon, I was discussing a fine point of punctuation with a co-worker. We agreed that his editor was wrong in enforcing a style point that we thought would lead to confusion. Surprise! Chicago agreed with us! (Chicago=The Chicago Manual of Style, aka the Holy Writ). I knew that this had to be. Style is subservient to meaning and not vice versa.
Usually I rewrite questionable stuff, as in “Students’ disrespect of teachers is sad to see.” This avoids “disrespect” as a verb, and also (ha-ha!) using “it” as a vague pronoun with no apparent antecedent.
The rule against split infinitives comes from 15th and 16th century England, when scholars were first trying to make rules for English based on Latin and Greek rules, as if Latin and Greek rules would somehow “bless” English with respectability. In the process, these scholars came up with stuff that doesn’t make sense and doesn’t work.
Learn the rule. Then do some research. You’ll find that every rule has an exception.
It’s just a typo, but I was amused by
>Joe Random says that “disprespecting” is logical.<
I wanna get out there and disprespect someone, now. In a logical way, of course.
(No blemish or disprespect to Comma for the typo meant, of course. God knows there’s probably one in here.)
It wasn’t a typo. I was…ummm…testing you all. Yeah, that’s it! It was a test!
And Quercus won. Well done!