From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Jan 29 20:09:32 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id UAA09828 for freebsd-chat-outgoing; Fri, 29 Jan 1999 20:09:32 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-11.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.40]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id UAA09815 for ; Fri, 29 Jan 1999 20:09:30 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from marko@uk.radan.com) Received: from [158.152.75.22] (helo=uk.radan.com) by post.mail.demon.net with smtp (Exim 2.10 #2) id 106Rim-00024s-00; Sat, 30 Jan 1999 04:09:25 +0000 Organisation: Radan Computational Ltd., Bath, UK. Phone: +44-1225-320320 Fax: +44-1225-320311 Received: from beavis.uk.radan.com (beavis [193.114.228.122]) by uk.radan.com (8.6.10/8.6.10) with SMTP id EAA00750; Sat, 30 Jan 1999 04:08:50 GMT Received: from uk.radan.com (rasnt-1) by beavis.uk.radan.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA15935; Sat, 30 Jan 99 04:08:45 GMT Message-Id: <36B2856E.FE4B1383@uk.radan.com> Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 04:07:10 +0000 From: Mark Ovens X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (Win95; I) X-Accept-Language: en-GB Mime-Version: 1.0 To: Greg Lehey Cc: "Daniel C. Sobral" , Sheldon Hearn , Poul-Henning Kamp , Mikhail Teterin , FreeBSD Chat Subject: Re: English style (was: btokup().. patch to STYLE(9) (fwd)) References: <90073.917600532@axl.noc.iafrica.com> <36B1CABD.BCC90EC7@newsguy.com> <19990130101911.V8473@freebie.lemis.com> <36B27388.E1E1D99A@uk.radan.com> <19990130133214.J8473@freebie.lemis.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Greg Lehey wrote: > > On Saturday, 30 January 1999 at 2:50:48 +0000, Mark Ovens wrote: > > > > > > Greg Lehey wrote: > >> > >> [moved to chat] > >> > >> On Friday, 29 January 1999 at 23:50:37 +0900, Daniel C. Sobral wrote: > >>> Sheldon Hearn wrote: > >>>> > >>>> I didn't have a problem reading the sentence, even though you left out > >>>> required commas. The only thing that caused a problem was your use of > >>>> split infinitive. ;-) > >>> > >>> Split infinitive is a urban legend. It has *never* been outlawed in > >>> the english language, except for some crazy people in this century > >>> and, I think, later last century. > >> > > > > Not according to the OED. It is only in the most recent edition that the > > split infinitive is officially recognized as grammatically correct. > > > > The classic example is Star Trek; "To boldly go.....", until now it > > should have been "Boldly to go...", or "To go boldly....". > > > > Still, what the hell. We all speak American nowadays anyway ;-) > > >From an authority that the Americans are more likely to accept, I > quote the Chicago Manual of Style, 14th Edition, section 2.98 > (footnote): > "...that the Americans are more likely to accept..."?. I thought we were talking about English?. The official definition of the English language is the OED, so to quote an obviously American journal on a point of English grammar is inappropriate. American-English and Australian-English are both derivatives of English (I object to the term "British-English"). If Americans have considered the split infinitive grammatically correct for many years then that is up to them, but in _English_ it has only recently become accepted as grammatically correct. > The thirteenth edition of this manual included split infinitives > among the examples of ``errors and infelicities'' but tempered the > inclusion by adding, in parentheses, that they are ``debatable > `error' ''. The term has been dropped from the fourteenth edition > because the Press now regards the intelligent and discriminating use > of the construction as a legitimate form of expression and nothing > writers or editors need feel uneasy about. Indeed, it seems to us > that in many cases clarity ad naturalness of expression are best > served by a judicious splitting of infinitives. > > Greg > -- > See complete headers for address, home page and phone numbers > finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message -- Trust the computer industry to shorten Year 2000 to Y2K. It was this thinking that caused the problem in the first place. My homepage http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~markov Mark Ovens, CNC Apps Engineer, | mailto:marko@uk.radan.com Radan Computational Ltd | http://www.radan.com Bath, England. CAD/CAM solutions | FreeBSD - The Power To Serve for the Sheetmetal Work industry.| http://www.freebsd.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message