Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 02:50:48 +0000 From: Mark Ovens <marko@uk.radan.com> To: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> Cc: "Daniel C. Sobral" <dcs@newsguy.com>, Sheldon Hearn <axl@iafrica.com>, Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@critter.freebsd.dk>, Mikhail Teterin <mi@kot.ne.mediaone.net>, FreeBSD Chat <chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: English style (was: btokup().. patch to STYLE(9) (fwd)) Message-ID: <36B27388.E1E1D99A@uk.radan.com> References: <90073.917600532@axl.noc.iafrica.com> <36B1CABD.BCC90EC7@newsguy.com> <19990130101911.V8473@freebie.lemis.com>
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Greg Lehey wrote:
>
> [moved to chat]
>
> On Friday, 29 January 1999 at 23:50:37 +0900, Daniel C. Sobral wrote:
> > Sheldon Hearn wrote:
> >>
> >> I didn't have a problem reading the sentence, even though you left out
> >> required commas. The only thing that caused a problem was your use of
> >> split infinitive. ;-)
> >
> > Split infinitive is a urban legend. It has *never* been outlawed in
> > the english language, except for some crazy people in this century
> > and, I think, later last century.
>
Not according to the OED. It is only in the most recent edition that the
split infinitive is officially recognized as grammatically correct.
The classic example is Star Trek; "To boldly go.....", until now it
should have been "Boldly to go...", or "To go boldly....".
Still, what the hell. We all speak American nowadays anyway ;-)
> How many English language laws are older?
>
> > In fact, when I learned this I saw some interesting examples of very
> > unreadable text because of lack of split infinitive. :-)
>
> Do share.
>
> Greg
> --
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--
Trust the computer industry to shorten Year 2000 to Y2K. It
was this thinking that caused the problem in the first place.
My homepage http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~markov
Mark Ovens, CNC Apps Engineer, | mailto:marko@uk.radan.com
Radan Computational Ltd | http://www.radan.com
Bath, England. CAD/CAM solutions | FreeBSD - The Power To Serve
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