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Subject:What should one do with split infinitives? From:Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Fri, 15 Apr 2005 09:16:16 -0400
Rahul Prabhakar wondered: <<What should one do with split infinitives
that is an infinitive with an adverb between 'to' and the verb (for
instance, 'to properly interpret')? Do we let them be during sentence
construction or modify the sentence?>>
The short version: There's nothing whatsoever wrong with split
infinitives unless you're writing for snooty academics who don't know
modern grammar. In many cases, they're far more clear and effective
than the available alternatives. The long version:
The prohibition against split infinitives is believed to have arisen
sometime around the 17th century. One of the best guesses of its origin
is that John Dryden, a Latin scholar, was seeking ways to make English
work more like Latin--completely ignoring the fact that the two are
different languages, with different structures and different rules, and
different patterns of usage. Every so often, this "rule" arises,
despite irresistable evidence that it makes no sense in modern English.
I believe Bishop Usher et al. revived this proscription about a century
ago, but didn't check into this.
The only good justification for _not_ splitting an infinitive comes
from the insertion of long adverbial phrases rather than a single
adverb. In these cases, it's possible to, by inserting great stretches
of useless narrative verbiage and exhibiting a clear disregard for how
people think, compounded by demonstrating your tin ear and no sense of
style, separate the "to" from the "verb" (as I have just done) by so
much text that readers no longer recognize the verb when they finally
reach it. This is clearly an exaggerated example, but even relatively
short phrases make the identification of the verb more difficult than
necessary.
A lesser justification comes from sentence rhythm and "comfort". If you
have a good ear for how English is spoken, you'll recognize cases where
a phrase is only idiomatic if you _don't_ split the infinitive. Failing
to follow that particular idiom attracts the reader's attention to what
you've done, and whenever you attract notice to the sentence
construction, you distract the reader from the meaning. That's a bad
thing.
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