To boldly split...

Cadet. "'SCUSE ME, SIR—ARE YOU A DOCTOR? THERE'S A BOY FAINTED."
Doctor. "AH—FATIGUE, I SUPPOSE?"
Cadet. "No, SIR. THE SERGEANT SPLIT AN INFINITIVE."
Punch, Vol. 156, April 30, 1919

Johnson bemoans the rule in the Economist style guide, which reads:

Happy the man who has never been told that it is wrong to split an infinitive: the ban is pointless. Unfortunately, to see it broken is so annoying to so many people that you should observe it.

The ban seems to have appeared during the 19th century, after at least six centuries of happy infinitive splitting. Since it made its way into school grammar texts, it has been memorised as a fixed rule, even though it makes no sense and isn't part of formal English grammar.

Theodore Bernstein said hopefully in Miss Thistlebottom’s Hobgoblins (1971) that “within the near future the split-infinitive bugaboo will be finally laid to rest.” Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage describes the resistance to the construction as having “established itself in that subculture existing in the popular press and in folk belief.” Garner’s Modern American Usage includes the split infinitive in the entry Superstitions. John Bremner wrote in 1980, “This so-called rule has no foundation in grammar, logic, rhetoric or common sense.”(John E. McIntyre: You don't say]

So, for more than 100 years, style books written for professional writers give similar advice to the Economist: there is nothing wrong with splitting an infinitive, but don't do it because some people will think you've made a mistake. Johnson refers to an article on Language Log, 'Crazies Win'. Arnold Zwicky comprehensively demolishes both the split infinitive 'rule' itself, and the style guide ban. He says:

Whether teachers proscribe split infinitives because they believe in [No Split Infinitives] NSI or because they think that's the easy route around [Split Infinitives as Last Resort] SILR, their students grow up thinking that split infinitives are a Bad Thing. If, later in life, they come across SILR in the advice literature, what are they to make of it? What was once banned is now permissible, but in what circumstances? How to know when the alternatives are worse?

The advice givers have tacitly acquired their own tastes in the matter, but they can't assume that their readers (already) share these tastes. In fact, by formulating principles like NSI and SILR, they have failed to teach their readers anything useful about how they might judge different versions of infinitival verbal phrases.

In other words, Zwicky believes that the ban perpetuates the myth that there is something wrong with split infinitives. He finishes:

The objective fact is that split infinitives are standard English. So my advice is: split an infinitive if it suits you (or don't, if that suits you). Good writers do it. And you don't even have to have a defense for it; do it because it sounds right for you. Don't let the crazies win.

The Oxford comma lives!

This from Stuff:

A report that Oxford University had changed its comma rule left some punctuation obsessives  alarmed, annoyed, and distraught. Passions subsided as the university said the news was imprecise, incomplete and misleading.

Catch the difference between the two previous sentences? An "Oxford comma" was used before "and" in the first sentence, but is absent in the second, in accordance with the style used by The Associated Press.

Guides to correct style differ and the issue became heated on Twitter after reports of the Oxford comma's demise. But have no fear, comma-philes: the Oxford comma lives...

[see Stuff for the rest of the article]

Top 10 misused English words

ListVerse, home to top-10 lists on almost everything, has recently published Andrew Pepper's list of the top ten English words misused by professional writers and speakers.

Do you agree? Disagree? Do you have other candidates?

(Andrew Pepper writes crime fiction set in Victorian Britain, and lectures in English at Queen's University, Belfast.)

Fun with grammar

Just before Christmas, we received this enquiry through our website:

kia ora
to my shame I don't regularly look at your website but someone sent me a link recently and as I scanned through it my eye landed on the piece about grammar that said english doesn't have rules it has patterns the article said you could split an infinitive start a sentence with a conjunction and finish a sentence with a preposition it then continued with a number of rules that have to be followed when using commas and apostrophes and so on which made me wonder which rules we have to follow and which ones we dont ive done a lot of writing and editing and following and writing style guides and i think you have to have rules that must be followed except when there is a good reason for breaking them take the split infinitive for example it can be the best way of expressing an idea to put an adverb between the to and the verb but if you just take the rule away people start putting whole adverbial phrases in there and it really does become hard to read i think there should be rules about capitals at the beginning of sentences and full stops at the end if we just do away with those rules english becomes hard to read the greeks used to write in capital letters with no puctuation and because it was hard to read people invented punctuation etc to make it easier its a good job i followed spelling rules or you would be totally confused happy christmas

We thought it was too good not to share, so we asked Peter Russell, the sender, if he minded us blogging his letter - and our response. Thanks, Peter, you're a good sport.

Here's the response:

Dear Peter
When you are trying to make something – whether it is a boat, a coat, or a sentence – it is important to follow the right pattern for the job. If you ignore large parts of the pattern, or don’t follow any pattern at all, you’ll end up with a mess. People with heaps of experience, talent, and skill can afford to take liberties with the pattern, because they understand their tools, their materials, and the impact of both on the effect they’re trying to achieve.

Nonetheless, the pattern is not a rule – in the commonly used sense of the term ‘rule’. If you put a keel on the roof of your cabin instead of under the hull, it won’t work – and all the people at the yacht club will have a good laugh at your expense, but you have not broken a rule. If you make one sleeve long and the other short, it might look odd, but you have not broken a rule. And if you insist on inventing your own spelling (or typing an email with no punctuation in order to tease your friendly local grammarians), your communication may be flawed, but the grammar police will not arrest you.

With that small change in terminology – rule to pattern – we agree with all that you’ve written. It is important to follow the patterns.

Peter may be please to know that we edited the article on the website that prompted his email, adding the line: "Below, we discuss some of the patterns you should follow if you don't want to confuse people." Thanks again, Peter.