A reader writes: \u201cIn re the preposition, I keep hoping you will take up the cause of the infinitive, which used to be a sacred whole and is now routinely split. \u00a0To rare advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n
The writer is June Caldwell Martin, book maven, notable person of letters a contributor to the Arizona Daily Star. And an impressive font of knowledge concerning authors of the Southwest having not only written about them, but crossed their paths as well.<\/p>\n
These days the effort to preserve the sanctity of the infinitive ranks with the crusade for world peace through the League of Nations and the movement to establish Esperanto as the mother tongue of the planet. Certainly it has not been for want of trying.<\/p>\n
I once attended a conference that featured James J. Kilpatrick, a former editor and opinion purveyor for the Richmond (Va) News-Leader. He fancied himself an authority, and spent much time arguing the inviolate sacrament of the undivided infinitive. He spoke as a true believer as his face grew crimson and he pounded his lectern and pronounced:<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat God hath brought together, let no man tear asunder!\u201d<\/p>\n
The other side of the issue contends, as this article from no less an authority than the oxforddictionaries.com:<\/p>\n
She used to secretly<\/b> admire him.<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n
You have to really<\/b> watch him.<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n
What\u2019s wrong with split infinitives?<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Some people believe that split infinitives are grammatically incorrect and should be avoided at all costs. They would rewrite these sentences as:<\/i><\/p>\n
<\/i>She used secretly<\/b> to admire him.<\/i><\/p>\n
You really<\/b> have to watch him.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/i>But there\u2019s no real justification for their objection, which is based on comparisons with the structure of Latin. People have been splitting infinitives for centuries, especially in spoken English, and avoiding a split infinitive can sound clumsy. It can also change the emphasis of what\u2019s being said. The sentence:<\/i><\/p>\n
You really have to watch him. [i.e. \u2018It\u2019s important that you watch him\u2019]\u00a0<\/i>\u00a0<\/i>doesn\u2019t have quite the same meaning as:\u00a0<\/i>You have to really watch him. [i.e. \u2018You have to watch him very closely\u2019]<\/i><\/p>\n
The trouble with splitting infinitives is that when they are split, it is done with adverbs. One should manage adverbs with care because they are like mashed potatoes. If one is sloppy, one\u2019s potatoes turn lumpy, and so it is with prose. A lumpy sentence is wordy. Thus if you want a sentence that says, \u201cIt\u2019s important that you watch him,\u201d it is advisable to be rid of \u201creally.\u201d Thus the infinitive remains unsullied, and the sentence reads: \u201cYou have to watch him.\u201d And if you want the sentence to say it\u2019s important to watch him closely, why on earth wouldn\u2019t you just say it, as in, \u201cYou have to watch him closely.\u201d<\/p>\n
I agree with the contention that avoiding split infinitive may sound clumsy. But clumsy prose is not the result of fooling with infinitives, split or pristine. The rewrite from the wise guys at Oxford: She used secretly<\/b> to admire him<\/i> is not necessarily the best alternative. It is better in my opinion to cast the \u201csecretly\u201d at the end, thus: She used to admire him secretly. <\/i>If you have a sort of innate dislike of the adverbial \u201cly,\u201d which I do because they wimpy laggards and do little work, you can resort to this: She used to admire him in secret.<\/i> This avoids the adverbial wimp and places the emphasis on the secret stuff because \u201csecret\u201d resides at the end of the sentence, to linger longer in the narrative. The period requires pause, the pause creates a bit of a punch.<\/p>\n
The key lies in June\u2019s observation that violation of the split infinitive rule rarely results in silky prose. That is not to say the rule is absolute or that there never are good reasons to split. Like most of life\u2019s little quandaries, it depends.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A reader writes: \u201cIn re the preposition, I keep hoping you will take up the cause of the infinitive, which used to be a sacred whole and is now routinely split. \u00a0To rare advantage.\u201d The writer is June Caldwell Martin, book maven, notable person of letters a contributor to the Arizona Daily Star. And an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auslander.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auslander.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auslander.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auslander.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auslander.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1231"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/auslander.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1237,"href":"https:\/\/auslander.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231\/revisions\/1237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auslander.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auslander.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auslander.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}