On 28 Nov 2003, "Dr. Jason Gastrich" <news@jcsm.org> screwed up his
face, groaned, pushed hard, and farted out the following message in
news:__Qxb.55747$t01.44819@twister.socal.rr.com:
> Ariaan wrote:
>> Mike Ruskai wrote:
>>> On Fri, 28 Nov 2003 16:41:36 +0100, Uncle Davey wrote:
>>>
>>>> By the same token, in exchange for pointing out your split
>>>> infinitive, I now am duty bound to think up a preposition to end
>>>> this sentence with.
>>>
>>> Not to pick on you personally, but this seems as good a time as any
>>> to point out that there's nothing ungrammatical about split
>>> infinitives or ending sentences with prepositions.
>>>
>>> There is, in fact, no official body to determine what is or is not
>>> proper grammar in English. Those who take it upon themselves to
>>> dictate grammar are always subservient to actual usage, whether they
>>> admit it or not.
>>>
>>> Since split infinitives and sentences ending in a preposition have
>>> clear and unambiguous meanings (all else being equal), they are
>>> perfectly grammatical.
>>>
>>> For those who are curious, the nonsense with split infinitives
>>> derives from the fact that in other languages on which English is
>>> based (in variously sized parts), infinitives are single words, and
>>> therefore by their very nature unsplittable.
>>>
>>> In German, for example, the equivalent of the English "to eat" is
>>> "essen". The German equivalent of "hungrily" is "hungrig". You
>>> can't put one word in the middle of another, so "to eat hungrily" is
>>> "hungrig essen". Even in unconventional order, "essen hungrig", the
>>> infinitive remains whole, simply because it's a single word.
>>
>> Tsk. Those two words together do not make one infinitive at all.
>> 'Hungrig' is an adjunct or modifier. Only 'eat' can make up the
>> infinitive, because only 'eat' is a verb. 'Hungrig essen', or 'eating
>> hungrily' for that matter, are not some sort of 'compound' verb. Come
>> on!
>> Splitting an infinitive in German would be to take the verb
>> 'abseilen' and breaking it up in 'ab' and 'seilen' for use in the
>> following sentence: Wir seilten die letzten Meters ab.
>> That, my friend, is splitting an infinitive; what you said is simply
>> placing the modifier elsewhere in the sentence.
>>
>>> In English, however, the infinitive is not a single word. It is no
>>> less clear saying "to hungrily eat" than "to eat hungrily".
>>
>> Wrong, as stated above.
>>
>>> Depending on what follows, it may be even more clear. For example,
>>> the strictly grammatic (according to wankers with too much time on
>>> their hands) form might be, "to eat hungrily the large meal
>>> provided." To most English speakers, it would be more natural and
>>> more clear to say "to hungrily eat the large meal provided". This
>>> is because it's more clear in the second example that there's
>>> something further on in the sentence that is being eaten.
>>>
>>> I don't know off hand where the panic about ending sentences with
>>> prepositions comes from. Perhaps it's simply the name "preposition"
>>> itself, which implies that the position being described comes before
>>> the object it applies to. That's not the modern usage, obviously,
>>> because a word doesn't cease to be a preposition by being placed
>>> after the object to which it applies. One can hardly complain about
>>> a sentence ending with a preposition if the word is no longer a
>>> preposition by virtue of being at the end.
>
> You guys better stay on Ariaan's good side. He's a linguist (and he
> can get a little nasty).
Yes, and I have no problem with saying I fully disagree with him on the
subject of split infinitives. I will change my stance if he can
rephrase the following to retain the dramatic impact of the phrase, yet
remove the split infinitive:
"To boldly go where no man has gone before..."
Proper usage, according to you at least, would be:
"Boldly to go where no man has gone before..."
or
"To go boldly where no man has gone before..."
or
"To go where no man has gone before boldly..."
None of these strike one as the original did.
--
Mekkala, Atheist #2148
"Atheism is ... the bed-rock of sanity in a world of madness."
--Emmett F. Fields
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