or, contrariwise, why it’s perfectly fine to do do in your opinion.
Anyone? Buellerr?
Because if I do it at work I get dinged?
(I’m a technical writer)
If people were to regularly split infinitives it would cause society to instantly and irrevocably descend into anarchy. Though perhaps I am overreacting.
I have heard that it is because the first widely literate english speaking class were typically also literate in Latin, and it is impossible to split a Latin infinitive.
It is not, and has never been, wrong to split an infinitive. Whatever makes the sentence look and sound best is the correct approach, split or not split.
It’s always perfectly fine to do-do in your opinion. Just make sure it’s your own opinion and nobody else’s.
I tend to avoid splitting infinitives because I was an English major, but I see no reason for it. There’s no impact on clarity either way. It often sounds more natural to my ear to split them.
Here’s an excellent explanation of the bogusness of the “don’t split infinitives” “rule.”
The reason for not splitting infinitives is simple and clear:
You don’t split infinitives because, in Latin, infinitives are one word.
So I’m sure everyone now under – wait, you don’t? You say you’re speaking English, not Latin? You barbarian! Everyone knows that Latin is the perfect language and everything else is just a debased form of it. Thus, the more we obey Latin rules (Yes, even if they don’t apply and I don’t think I heard who said that. Detention for you all!), the better we speak English.
What? English has Germanic roots? The Latin roots were grafted on. There’s a simple explanation for that. It’s – detention to you for asking!
I couldn’t take more than three hours of German because I didn’t too well know English grammar and you’re asking me this already?
I thought “outf–kingstanding” was a split infinitive.:rolleyes:
I vote for whatever sounds best. After all, “To boldly go where no man has gone before” is damned close to iambic pentameter. Yeah, yeah, I know “where no man” is a dactyl. But rewrite the line so the infinitive is not split, and the meter is clunky.
Would that be a terra-dactyl?
That was a great link, Scarlett. Thanks.
Conversely, because I was an English major (long ago, back in the middle of the last century), I’m perfectly happy to split infinitives, whenever it seems right to so do.
This.
(I once asked my teacher why we had Latin lessons. “So you can read the classics in their original language. And stop messing with that computer, or whatever it is.”)
But that’s someone else’s opinion, Scarlett. I’m doing a POLL.
Well, I would hope it’s obvious that I agree with what Bill Walsh (the author of the site) wrote. He explains it better than I could, and pretty much covers what I would say. I thought it would be illuminating.
You know, fighting ignorance and all that. With a cite from the copy chief for national news at the Washington Post to back me up.
(Are you going to ding glee for simply agreeing with RealityChuck, too? :dubious: )
And so it was!
Actually I was just making a joke. Rhymers don’t ding. It’s one of the rules Thomas the Rhymer established when he founded the clan, along with never punching alligators in the face without good reason.
We should split infinitives less often because it is, at times, the result of using an adverb that a better verb choice would render redundant.
Ah. Forgot this was a poll. Then count me firmly with the splitter camp. I read a trade magazine and they must have software that automatically un-splits submitted articles. Two or three times, for every blessed article, I stumble to a stop and wonder how someone could cook up that particular phrasing.
Do what sounds best.