Split Infinitives

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Simon Collier 1 on 29/05/2017 23:27:52:

… the recent, almost ubiquitous use of "gender" instead of "sex", including on many official forms.

.

It's nothing sinister … it's just a simple matter of disambiguation.

MichaelG.

[blowlampParticipant @blowlamp]

I still don't understand why there's a comma after "Dear Sir/Madam" at the beginning of correspondence, because it seems like it should be a full stop to me.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by blowlamp on 29/05/2017 23:54:53:

I still don't understand why there's a comma after "Dear Sir/Madam" at the beginning of correspondence, because it seems like it should be a full stop to me.

.

As it's not a complete sentence, a full stop would be excessive … but I agree that a comma does seem odd.

Grammatically, I think it should be a colon; but for a clean visual effect I usually omit any punctuation mark.

MichaelG.

[Robin GrahamParticipant @robingraham42208]

Fowler, in his Modern English Usage, writes at some length on this topic. Too long to reproduce in its entirety here, but he divides the attitudes of the English-speaking world to split infinitives into five categories. The first is: "Those who neither know nor care [what a split infinitive is] are the vast majority, and are a happy folk, to be envied by most of the minority classes. 'To really understand' comes readier to their lips and pens than 'really to understand'; they see no reason why they should not say it (small blame to them, seeing that reasons are not their critics' strong point), to the discomfort of some of us, but not to their own".

As ever he talks sound common sense.

That said, you meddle wth your contributors' prose at your peril Neil – I once had a battle with an author about 'consisting of' or 'comprising of' and other infelicities which delayed publication of the paper for months. I gave in eventually. For people who've not seen their name in print before it's a big thing that their writing should be as it was written by them.

Stet !

Rob

(Thornbridge brewery in my case – Jaipur, mmm…)

Edited By Robin Graham on 30/05/2017 00:37:47

[Geoff TheasbyParticipant @geofftheasby]

An editor's job is to 'edit'. Whether for style, length, sense, accuracy or grammar, is incidental. Anyone who insists that their deathless prose be printed 'untouched by human hand' should be approached with great caution.

The passive voice is largely an American preference, and makes for dull reading. Reference to 'usual disclaimer', 'other products are available' are a clumsy attempt to forestall charges of patronage or advertising. At least we have so far avoided the gutter press habit of taking their readership for fools by captioning pictures, "Picture posed by models" as though some heinous activity really was photographed at the time…

Geoff

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Mark Rand on 29/05/2017 22:23:12:

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."

[JourneymanParticipant @journeyman]

Gave up using Word years ago – too bloated, too Microsoft, too expensive, too annoying! Use Libre Office, does all the same things works on Linux, Windows and OSX and best of all it's free.

John

[David HaythornthwaiteParticipant @davidhaythornthwaite90386]

"… the recent, almost ubiquitous use of "gender" instead of "sex", including on many official forms."

I used to write business software, and of course this involved the design of forms.

I originally used to have a field labelled "Sex" and I changed this to "Gender" after one of our female staff asked me if the box was a "Yes / No" question !!

[blowlampParticipant @blowlamp]

Posted by Journeyman on 30/05/2017 10:28:24:

Gave up using Word years ago – too bloated, too Microsoft, too expensive, too annoying! Use Libre Office, does all the same things works on Linux, Windows and OSX and best of all it's free.

John

I've already had that conversation with Neil, but it was a step too far.

Martin.

[richardandtracyParticipant @richardandtracy]

I rather feel, with regard to gender correctness, the Oxford comma and split infinitives, that I should paraphrase Churchill & say

'Up with this, one should not have to put.'

Regards,

Richard.

[MWParticipant @mw27036]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 30/05/2017 10:19:56:

Lol

Michael W

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

Does anyone actually commence a project?

As in I commenced with the castings (an not only that I started wiv em an all).

Martin

[David Standing 1Participant @davidstanding1]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 30/05/2017 10:19:56:

Excellent! .

[David Standing 1Participant @davidstanding1]

Posted by Martin Kyte on 30/05/2017 11:55:08:

Does anyone actually commence a project?

Martin

Nobody on here, they are all too busy arguing English grammar .

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Simon Collier 1 on 29/05/2017 23:27:52:

…

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.

Thirty years ago I was on a Computer Database course (for practitioners, not students) where the lecturer happened to give 'Sex' as an example of a binary field. For the purpose of recording Gender, he said, a single binary bit is sufficient to hold the information. A person is either male, or not male (ie female).

Two hands shot up. One said that his health system database allowed 23 variations of 'Sex/Gender', the other, from Social Security I think, said 19. This led to an interesting discussion!

What they were obliged to record in addition to the common male/female alternative and 'don't know' or 'not applicable', was a wide range of legal, medical and psychological possibilities. I don't remember any examples apart from 'MAI' (male assigned intersex), which is a child born with ambiguous genitalia who is made a boy for legal purposes.

Some people are very sensitive about what they are and that led to a more Politically Correct approach to data collection. The trouble with being PC is that it's very difficult to get right and it changes over time. We live in a funny old world.

Dave

[richardandtracyParticipant @richardandtracy]

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 30/05/2017 12:26:57:

…Some people are very sensitive about what they are and that led to a more Politically Correct approach to data collection. …

I'm sure a bit of 'Just get over it, there are more important things to be bothered about' would help enormously in the long term, even if there are ruffled feathers in the short term.

Regards,

Richard

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Posted by Geoff Theasby on 30/05/2017 06:16:55:

 

The passive voice is largely an American preference, and makes for dull reading.

Where on earth do you get that idea from? It was vigorously discouraged when I went to uni ("college" ) there and I have never seen a propensity for the passive in many years of reading American publications ranging from literary works to newspapers to technical manuals.

Overall, I would say that American writing in fields ranging from books to newspapers and magazines is generally livelier than its counterparts in other parts of the English-speaking world, reflecting the faster pace and louder volume of life in the USA. Dullness just does not feature there. (Look at their politics for just one example!)

Edited By Hopper on 30/05/2017 13:13:04

Edited By Hopper on 30/05/2017 13:13:48

[Nigel BennettParticipant @nigelbennett69913]

"This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put." – Winston Churchill.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by richardandtracy on 30/05/2017 12:53:27:

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 30/05/2017 12:26:57:

…Some people are very sensitive about what they are and that led to a more Politically Correct approach to data collection. …

I'm sure a bit of 'Just get over it, there are more important things to be bothered about' would help enormously in the long term, even if there are ruffled feathers in the short term.

Regards,

Richard

Agreed life's priorities come first. I still think it's bad policy to upset people unnecessarily.

Dave

[GeorgineerParticipant @georgineer]

… (Omar's surname was Khayyam, not Kamm.)….

Did you know that he owned the world's first inflatable sailing boat?

Come now, you must have heard of the Rubber Yacht of Omar Khayyam.

Geo.

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

Churchill had the benefit of having received a Classical education, and I have to agree that some of what has already been posted here,"Up with which we should not have to put".

At school, (in U.K.) MANY years ago, we were taught that reports should always be written in the third person, so that "we did not add chemicals", but that "chemicals were added". The object of a report, (which is what an article would seem to be, in this context) should be to convey information with clarity, (or clearly, if space is scarce).

Will some kind person please help me to step down from my soapbox? (Now that 's interesting: is the verb "step down" or just "step"? I'll leave you all to argue about that!

Howard

[mark costello 1Participant @markcostello1]

If You think American life is loud all the way over there, try hearing it close up. Disgusting.

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

Posted by Howard Lewis on 30/05/2017 16:58:28:

Churchill had the benefit of having received a Classical education, and I have to agree that some of what has already been posted here,"Up with which we should not have to put".

At school, (in U.K.) MANY years ago, we were taught that reports should always be written in the third person, so that "we did not add chemicals", but that "chemicals were added". The object of a report, (which is what an article would seem to be, in this context) should be to convey information with clarity, (or clearly, if space is scarce).

Will some kind person please help me to step down from my soapbox? (Now that 's interesting: is the verb "step down" or just "step"? I'll leave you all to argue about that!

Howard

You are correct of course.

Your school was correct, of course.

Of course you are correct.

Medical journal articles follow strict protocols regarding the third person usage and other formats particularly with regard to an initial abstract and a concluding discussion and references.

As to 'stepping' or should that be 'to stepping' then the 'down' is just an adverb and you could step in a number of directions whilst on your soapbox albeit that depends on surrounding geography and objects. 'Stepping aside' could cover most occasions.

pgk

[Peter TuckerParticipant @petertucker86088]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 29/05/2017 20:28:18:

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

Hi Neil,

All rules come from somewhere, knowing from whence they come should surely not invalidate them.

Peter.

[John OlsenParticipant @johnolsen79199]

Well, that particular rule is certainly not invalid for Latin, but I find it hard to see why it should be applied to English, which is a completely different language.

The rules of English are not laid down by any authority other than usage, they are observed norms rather than laws.

John

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