Hi, Thursday, January 23, 2003, 12:58:33 AM, you wrote:
> You do know why American split infinities, don't you? It's because Fowler* > actually approved of the practice--he thought it was pedantic to disallow it > categorically. We promptly stopped teaching grammar in grammar schools and > have been happily splitting our infinitives ever since. the particularly annoying thing about the way Americans do it, and it's catching on here to, is that they seem to do it at every opportunity. Whenever there's an adverb somewhere within the same region of the cosmos as an infinitive, you just have to incorrectly shove (!) it right in there. It's like there's some sort of black hole in between the 'to' and the verb sucking those adverbs in. Sometimes it makes no difference to the meaning, but the position of the adverb with respect to the verb can alter the sense of the phrase very significantly, yet in US English it seems to be almost mandatory to split the infinitive. On the other hand, some UK English writers go through great circumlocutions to avoid it, and end up with horribly clumsy sentences where the meaning is lost simply because all you notice is the effort they've gone to not to split the thing. Or should I say 'gone to to not split...' <g>. Another really annoying thing is the tendency to use "quote marks" inappropriately (as here) and for emphasis. Example: Win a "free" holiday! --- Bob
