🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <18872@mindlink.bc.ca>, Crawford_Kilian@mindlink.bc.ca (Crawford Kilian) writes:
|> 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
|> 
Hmm...
" Crawford Kilian   Communications Department   Capilano College"
                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Mr. Crawford Kilian, of the Communications Department(sic), is mistaken.
What was really posted?  Quote:
.......... begin original post....

|> 
|> One theory that I've heard proposed as to why English does not allow
|> split infinitives is that Latin does not allow split infinitives, and
|> many of our verbs are taken from Latin. 

Allow?  Are there grammar police lurking in the woodwork?  Grammar
is not jurisprudence.

...........end original post....

Bob Jernigan did NOT "express surprise that Latin does not allow."  There
is a difference between "allow" and "can't".  The question is not one of
no possibility, associated with "can't", but rather whether grammar 
dictates what is allowed, which is associated with possibility.

Mr. Kilian further uses his garbled premise and "sad proof that we
should have kept Latin in the curriculum."  Perhaps we should have 
also kept logic in the curriculum so that Mr. Kilian would have been
able to keep his syllogism untangled.  It has been 37 years since my
last Latin class so my Latin is a bit rusty.  As for my French and
Spanish, and for that matter German, I have a little more currency.

bob