🚀 go-pugleaf

Bob Jernigan expresses surprise that Latin does not allow split infinitives,
and asks whether grammar police are lurking in the woodwork...sad proof that
we should have kept Latin in the curriculum, so Bob and others would have
learned that Latin infinitives are single words, just as they are in French
and Spanish, so you don't need "grammar cops" any more than you need gravity
cops.

While many of our verbs come from Latin (often via French), the rule against
split infinitives appears to have been a matter of slavish obedience to the
forms of a foreign language. A sensitive stylist will split an infinitive
like kindling if it helps the rhythm and flow of the sentence, or keep the
"to" and the verb together for the same reason.


--
Crawford Kilian   Communications Department   Capilano College
North Vancouver BC Canada V7J 3H5
Usenet: Crawford_Kilian@mindlink.bc.ca
Internet: ckilian@first.etc.bc.ca