Split Infinitives

[JourneymanParticipant @journeyman]

Posted by Hopper on 29/05/2017 13:18:15:

And if Sir Harry's surname is Evans, as in the first par, the possessive case should be Evans's in the second par, and not "Evan's".

I could be pedantic and say that the possessive case for a word already ending in s is normally just to add the apostrophe – Evans' not Evans's. I am not sure of the validity of starting a sentence with And either. I could of course be entirely wrong as English grammar was never my best subject at school (about 60 years ago)!

John

Edit: I can't spell either!

Edited By Journeyman on 29/05/2017 13:35:17

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Journeyman on 29/05/2017 13:32:10:

I could be pedantic and say that the possessive case for a word already ending in s is normally just to add the apostrophe – Evans' not Evans's. I am not sure of the validity of starting a sentence with And either. I could

I will be pedantic and insist both are matters of style not grammar, although i tend to uyse Thomas' rather than Thomas's in MEW.

Interestingly, some names are almost impossible to pronounce comfortably with the double- s: Mr Michaels's car or Mr Mr Michaels' car?

Then again if the Jones family have a car, could it be the Jones's's or the Joneses's?

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Are wine drinkers just a bit pretentious? After my glass of cider at lunch I don't seem to care about gramer or spilling eether.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Hopper on 29/05/2017 13:18:15:

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 29/05/2017 10:27:15:.

…

Oh dear. Is there no end to it? (The rough red, that is.) The Pedant's name is Oliver Kamm, not Omar. (Omar's surname was Khayyam, not Kamm.).

…

OK, I'm embarrassed, all the boobs in the post are mine. Even worse, the Omar mistake is very revealing about my unconscious which anticipated:

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

Anyone understand this dream I keep having? It features limp sausages, a pistol that won't fire, and drooping candles. On second thoughts I don't want to know the answer!

Dave

[mark costello 1Participant @markcostello1]

Boobs in the post? I've missed something! Thought They were not allowed?

[Mark RandParticipant @markrand96270]

The passive voice should always be used in articles concerning the construction of tools and equipment, since they are factual works and not ladies' romances. Oxford commas may be used where appropriate, though.

Where's that beer I just put down?

[GeorgineerParticipant @georgineer]

I suggest that you ask the split infinitive pedants whether one should say "Your argument fails to completely convince me", or "Your argument completely fails to convince me".

I am happy to go with George Bernard Shaw's statement that “Every good literary craftsman splits his infinitives when the sense demands it”.

Geo.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Georgineer on 29/05/2017 15:31:07:

I am happy to go with George Bernard Shaw's statement that “Every good literary craftsman splits his infinitives when the sense demands it”

Writing improves with age – at least that's my impression!

Neil

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Interestingly, some names are almost impossible to pronounce comfortably with the double- s: Mr Michaels's car or Mr Mr Michaels' car?

Then again if the Jones family have a car, could it be the Jones's's or the Joneses's?

Jones singular

Joneses plural

so their vehicle is the Joneses' car. It's quite simple really. Using 2 apostrophes shows you're losing your grip. Now off to the pub with my mate Paul to sample the Shropshire Lad bitter. Beats all this rotted grape juice

[V8EngParticipant @v8eng]

 

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 29/05/2017 17:53:46:

Posted by Georgineer on 29/05/2017 15:31:07:

I am happy to go with George Bernard Shaw's statement that “Every good literary craftsman splits his infinitives when the sense demands it”

 

Writing improves with age – at least that's my impression!

Neil

 

I wish! mine appears to get worse almost by the day.

 

I think Al Murray as the Pub Landlord has a comment about wine in his shows, none of it affects me anyway cos I drink Whisky (well I used to).

Edited By V8Eng on 29/05/2017 19:12:57

[Peter TuckerParticipant @petertucker86088]

Hi Neil,

As editor I would expect you would correct (remove) errors, not add them.

Peter.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Peter Tucker on 29/05/2017 19:25:48:

Hi Neil,

As editor I would expect you would correct (remove) errors, not add them.

Peter.

Exactly, is it not an error to apply the rules of Latin to English?

Neil

[Gordon Brown 1Participant @gordonbrown1]

Lambton's comment regarding conveying the writer's meaning brings to mind an amusing incident from many years ago, when a certain London local authority (well known to myself) was adopting all manner of bizarre management systems. HR decided to send out a memo advising that all written material, both for internal and external consumption, must be scored on a readability test called the Gunning fog index before it could be circulated and nothing with a score higher than 8 would be allowed. This was to ensure that the material could be understood by just about anyone, which I suppose is a laudable aim, but the system really was employing a drop hammer to flatten a jelly. Some wag decided to run the original HR memo through the index and surprise, surprise it scored a hefty 14, which meant it needed a college education to fully understand the content. After the results were sent in a plain brown wrapper to the head of HR the whole idea was never heard of again…

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Just wondering, Neil …

Is the author of the article aware of your dilemma?

… and does he/she have an opinion?

MichaelG.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 29/05/2017 20:49:49:

Just wondering, Neil …

Is the author of the article aware of your dilemma?

… and does he/she have an opinion?

MichaelG.

Possibly! Probably! Provably?

To be honest, although the 'atomic infinitive' jarred with me, this is the sort of thing that lets the 'voice' of the author come through and I would not normally change such aspects of a text. MEW and ME are both magazines where the writing is always very much from a personal perspective. Most of my changes (other than correcting unintentional errors of spelling and punctuation) are to ensure readability and clarity of meaning, I try hard not to change the style of contributions.

Writing for a magazine published on behalf of a Broadcasting Corporation, the style guide was very clear that I had to write as 'we' as 'the magazine' – presumably a collective noun, like the Police – was instructing the reader. I didn't enjoy writing that way, and I think the magazine in question comes across as rather dry and formal, as if it is trying to be a textbook.

Earlier someone drew a distinction between formal writing and novels; MEW sits between these extremes. Though over-use of passive sentences would make it a very stiff read, it suits some articles and authors.

The most challenging problem I face is when I receive a long article partly written in the present tense and partly in the past tense. Sometimes this works for narrative reasons, but usually it doesn't and just means the writer has reached a point, then gone off for a few days before finishing the article.

Neil

[Alex DU PRE 1Participant @alexdupre1]

Neil, I have read up on split infinitives once or twice and come to the conclusion that the so-called rule is an affectation with no grammatical basis. I do try to avoid splitting the infinitive, however, unless the meaning or readability requires otherwise, in which case I split without guilt!

[Harry WilkesParticipant @harrywilkes58467]

My old English teacher once said it's my job to get you to understand the English language yet there are times I do not quite understand it my self ! He would then quote one of his many examples

" Bus on fire passengers alight '

H

[Geoff TheasbyParticipant @geofftheasby]

I haven't contributed so far, having been engaged in writing my next magnum opus (Oops, sorry, Latin!)

I, too, disregard the complaints about split infinitives. Just because it isn't possible in Latin is no reason to forbid it in English. The 'flow' of the sentence, the readability of it, should be the consideration, not abstruse arguments taken from a dead language.

When I ran quizzes in an earlier life, the teams were informed that the Questionmaster's decisions would be "Arbitrary, prejudiced and final"

Geoff

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Nice one, Harry

But my English master would have insisted upon a leading apostrophe.

MichaelG.

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

“to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

Mike

[Barnaby WildeParticipant @barnabywilde70941]

I live in "Ey up me duck" country & if any of you southern lighweights started talkin like that round ere thad get politely asked to "leave by the door or the winder, yowr choice".

No such choice wud be availables to ya if yer dared to ask for a glass o whine.

Wasn't our language & the way it is pronounced interfered with by the Edwardian & Victorian snobs, to further seperate the classes ?

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

Posted by Mark Rand on 29/05/2017 15:09:42:

The passive voice should always be used in articles concerning the construction of tools and equipment, since they are factual works and not ladies' romances. Oxford commas may be used where appropriate, though.

When writing in the passive voice, don't forget to pepper the article with phrases like The author decided, your editor, usual disclaimer etc to ensure that your piece is thoroughly tedious to read. Notice the missing Oxford comma in that list; using one just looks odd to me.

Many of the contentious points of English grammar and style are best served with the advice(from Craig Shrives' Grammar Rules) of picking the one that looks best to you, and using it without exception.

[Mark RandParticipant @markrand96270]

One should admit that one's tongue was quite firmly in one's cheek when one wrote that comment.

I also delight in annoying Microsoft's grammar checker. "Hi I'm clippy and it looks like you're British."

[Simon CollierParticipant @simoncollier74340]

Michael, there is a perfectly good third person singular, common gender personal pronoun and it is "he". I will never yield to the feminazis! "He" is also the masculine gender pronoun of course, and "she" the feminine. "It" is the neuter. One uses the common gender pronoun when the sex of the subject (or object) is unknown. While speaking of gender, all will have noticed the recent, almost ubiquitous use of "gender" instead of "sex", including on many official forms. This seemed to happen very suddenly. Jane Austin was happy to use the word "sex", so why suddenly are we squeamish? To clarify, there are two sexes, male and female, and four genders, masculine, feminine, common and neuter, and these latter apply to nouns and pronouns. The push to replace "sex" with "gender" has been very deliberate. It is somehow politically correct, but for the life of me I can't work out how. One would have to have that tangle of contradictions that is the left wing brain to understand it.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Simon,

I am not squeamish … I simply try to be courteous.

I do not know the gender of the individual in question, and using he/she seemed least likely to offend.

… I was unaware of your opinion, and had not taken it into consideration.

MichaelG.

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