On 28/12/2016 16:58, Alan Mackenzie wrote: > Hello, Neil. > > On Wed, Dec 28, 2016 at 02:09:10PM +0000, Neil Bothwick wrote: > >> Don't forget split infinitives - the construct that is absolutely >> forbidden, but no one knows why. I had a production editor who picked me >> up every time I used one. I pointed out that that battle was lost as soon >> as Star Trek became mainstream. > > I have a theory about this. If you write "we need to thoroughly think > this through", what is the verb? It tends to become "to > thoroughlythink" rather than "to think". This coupling of adverb and > verb into a single word is probably undesirable. Hence, no split > infinitives, please. > > For what it's worth, in German, when there's a "zu" (to) in front of an > infinitive, it is _never_ separated by even the first part of a > separable verb, never mind an adverb.
Well, German is a language after all, a real one with definite rules. English is a mish-mash of any good (and sometimes not so good) ideas that English people came into contact with. Oddly enough, of the 5 major input sources to modern English, the smallest contribution is from English itself. Go figure :-) As for split infinitives, no-one familiar with types of words would ever think "thoroughly" is a verb, it's an adverb. The verb is "to think". English is there so speakers can use it to communicate, not so that natural language parsers can have an easy time or grammarians can sit smugly and "be correct". The people created English, let the people decide what is proper -- Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com
