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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
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To: Scarecrow who wrote (52551)10/26/2000 1:19:27 PM
From: nihil  Read Replies (1) of 769670
 
Oh come on, are you going to let a group of Oxford libertines further debase the English language? My favorite treatment is Fowler who starts off:
"The English speaking world may be divided into 1) those who neither know nor care what a split infinitive is; 2) those who do not know but care very much; 3) those who know & condemn; &5) those who know & and distinguish.

Fowler points out that anti-splitting is the high newspaper tradition and ends his article as follows:
'A book of ... which the purpose is thus -- with a deafening split infinitive -- stated by its author: -- It's main idea is to, even while events are maturing, &divinely -- from the Divine point of view -- impeach the European system of Church & States".'.

I felt obligated to ask politely that Neocon not split infinitives as he obviously cannot distinguish and it makes his prose (IMO) uglier than it need be. It is a question of style, not grammar (unlike Latin). One may do almost anything he wishes with English word order, but it has a cost in comprehensibility.
Promiscuous infinitive splitting is bad because it is a crutch. It contributes to "adverbing" -- the use of redundant adverbs. Often there are verbs that render a split infinitive unnecessary. "to rapidly run" = "to race"; "to boldly go" = "to pioneer" or "to explore"; every adverb saved means a better verb has been used, writing made tighter, more concise.
P.S. I also love your hilarious spelling (e.g. "non sequitir"). Misspelling Latin words means the misspeller is a pretentious hypocrite. Sometimes.
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