Number 24
Did you learn never to split an infinitive or did you never learn not to split an infinitive? Perhaps you learned to never split an infinitive.
Relax ~ it is not necessary to not split an infinitive!
I believe that a few hundred years ago (I'm guessing) English grammarians, men of letters educated in Latin and Greek, constructed an English grammar modeled after Latin, in which an infinitive cannot be split. I don't know Latin but I know a little Spanish, and an example of a Spanish infinitive is "hablar", which means "to speak": "hablar" is one word, so obviously cannot be split. The ancient Romans and Greeks were the models of all that was to be admired and imitated in philosophy, literature, arts, etc., so a rule was invented for English based on a completely different language.
Often it just sounds peculiar in English not to split an infinitive. When I'm editing for other people, I try not to only because so many people learned that rule and are convinced that it's an absolute rule, and I don't want to distract them unnecessarily. (Notice that there seems to be no rule about not finishing an infinitive, as in "I try not to".) However, consider Star Trek's "To boldly go where no man has gone before." "To boldly go" is just fine.
Compare these variations on a sentence:
1. My goal is greatly to simply my life.
2. My goal is to simplify greatly my life.
3. My goal is to simplify my life greatly.
4. My goal is to greatly simplify my life.
(You know how nothing makes sense if you repeat it often enough ~ but let's plow ahead.)
Number 1 just sounds a bit odd and stilted. I don't think it's particularly good even for formal English. And perhaps I'm saying I am great and doing great things in a great way. Imagine commas around "greatly".
Number 2 sounds weirdly German (remember Teutonization).
Number 3 sounds natural, but if the predicate were very long, the adverb would get lost out there.
Number 4 is common English usage, it's clear, it sounds natural, and "greatly" is placed immediately before the word it modifies, "simplify".
Here's another example, where the varied placement of the adverb actually changes the meaning of the sentence:
1. I decided quickly to go to the parking lot.
2. I decided to quickly go to the parking lot.
3. I decided to go quickly to the parking lot.
It's easy to see that in number 1, "quickly" probably modifies the decision. In number 2, "quickly" may describe the walk to the parking lot, and in number 3, it may describe the initial movement to head out to the lot. These last two are subtle variations and open to dispute as to how or whether their meaning differs. In any case, sometimes the meaning requires placing a modifier in between the "to" and the verb of an infinitive.
Another rule that begs to be broken or at least ignored sometimes in English is the one that forbids ending a sentence with a preposition. You know the famous story about Winston Churchill, who said, "That is something up with which I will not put." But there are so many real English idiomatic constructions that acceptably hang the preposition at the end:
Sure, there are other ways to form these sentences and avoid the ending preposition, but is there anything really wrong with these?
From the T and V: "The roadmap for peace may be hopelessly lost on a back road."
There's a roadmap that refuses to stop and ask for directions.
Copyright Rhonda Keith 2003. Parvum Opus or part of it may be reproduced only with permission, but it is permissible to forward the entire newsletter as long as the copyright remains.
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