Grammar rock

[magid]

Listening to the radio this morning, I heard yet another infinitive unthinkingly split, and started wondering if anyone other than a couple of junior high school grammar teachers really cares about not splitting infinitives (except in certain extraordinary circumstances). I think it's gotten to the point that it sounds right to people most of the time to split them; putting the modifier elsewhere now sounds "wrong."

And I wondered about the poor forlorn subjunctive, something I like to use appropriately (it came clear when I took French), but perhaps I have become a grammar fuddy-duddy on this issue?

I still can't abide some of the misspellings I see and am not going to stop being bothered by them.
At least I call it skim milk, I suppose.
I

Comments

[cellio]

At least I call it skim milk, I suppose.

As opposed to what?

I am also bothered by grammar abuse, though I have lost sensitivity in some areas (and acquired it in others). I admit that split infinitives are an area where my sensitivity has decreased.

Skim milk

[magid.livejournal.com]

My dad insists it's "skimmed milk," since it is milk that has been skimmed of cream. I point to the containers printed "skim milk," rather universally, and he just insists they are all wrong.

Comes down to the question of communication, I suppose: if everyone agrees it should be this way and not that way, and the meaning is clear to everyone, does it matter?

I wonder how much Star Trek contributed to the fall of the evil empire of split infinitives...?
o

Well, see, that's the thing....

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

Ok, time to tilt at this windmill one more time.

There is no proscription in formal English against the splitting of the infinitive. It's a misconception that comes from attempting to apply rules of Latin grammar to English. In Latin, you cannot split infinitives, so someone decided you shoudln't be able to do it in English either.

Of course, in Latin, the infinitive is a single word, not two words. And English is not Latin, or even a derivative of it.

The reason it sounds perfectly fine to most people is that, in spite of hundreds of English teachers plunging lemminglike off the same cliff of misconception, there's actually nothing wrong with it.

Love,
-R

Re: Well, see, that's the thing....

[magid.livejournal.com]

I hadn't realized it came from the Latin, where of course you can't split it. You're not supposed to split words. Why would this rule have come to mean infinitives only, when there are so many other words in Latin that translate into more than one word in English? ('cause I remember some junior high school teacher drumming this into the class.)

I agree that it usually sounds fine with the infinitive split, though sometimes there are possible benefits to putting the modifier elsewhere nearby.

[side note: Hebrew also has one-word infinitives, as does French. Interesting that English is the only language I know with two-word infinitives.]
h