Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 23:13:06 -0500 From: Greg Pavelcak <gpavelcak@philos.umass.edu> To: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: English style (was: btokup().. patch to STYLE(9) (fwd)) (fwd) Message-ID: <19990131231306.A64489@oitunix.oit.umass.edu> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.990131211156.21083A-100000@kcfhome.my.domain>; from furgesl@balrog.ucs.uindy.edu on Sun, Jan 31, 1999 at 09:32:35PM -0500 References: <Pine.BSF.3.96.990131192552.20868E-100000@kcfhome.my.domain> <Pine.BSF.3.96.990131211156.21083A-100000@kcfhome.my.domain>
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On Sun, Jan 31, 1999 at 09:32:35PM -0500, furgesl@balrog.ucs.uindy.edu wrote: > > >From another source: > > In the opinion of a high school English teacher, the split infinitive is > not acceptable in academic writing; however, it is considered > grammatically correct. To encourage young writers to advance their > writing "maturity", the split infinitive, contractions, and the use of > passive verbs are not permitted. (Along with many others) > > According to "Woe Is I" by Patricia T. O'Connner: > > The truth is that the phrase "split infinitive" is misleading. Since *to* > isn't really part of the infinitive, there's nothing to split. A sentence > often sounds better when the *to* is close to the infinitive: *Violet > decided to ask for a raise*. But there's no harm in separating them by > putting a descriptive word or two in between: *Violet decided to bravely > ask for a raise*. > > Writers of English have been merrily "splitting" infinitives since the > 1300's, and it was considered acceptable until the mid-nineteenth century, > when grammar books--notably Henry Alford's *Plea for the Queen's > English*--started calling it a crime. (Some linguists trace the taboo to > the Victorians' slavish fondness for Latin, a language in which you > *can't* divide an infinitive.) This "rule" was popular for half a > century, until leading grammarians debunked it. > > Stefanie > Can you stand another authority? A couple of excerpts from the entry in *Fowler's Guide to English Usage* Those who neither know nor care are the vast majority, and are a happy folk, to be envied by most of the minority classes. `To really understand' comes readier to their lips and pens than `really to understand'; they see no reason why they should not say it (small blame to them, seeing that reasons are not their critics' strong point), and they do say it, to the discomfort of some among us, but not to their own. Later, the view: We maintain, however, that a real s.i., though not desirable in itself, is preferable to either of two things, to real ambiguity, and to patent artificiality. For the first, we will rather write `Our object is to further cement trade relations' than, by correcting into `Our object is further to cement ...', leave it doubtful whether an additional object or additional cementing is the point. And for the second, we take it that such reminders of a tyrannous convention as `in not combining to forbid flatly hostilities' are far more abnormal than the abnormality they evade. Greg To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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