By Anatoly Liberman
USAGE
Split infinitive soup: enjoy
As I said, when I first broached this subject, discussing the merits and demerits of the split infinitive is an unprofitable occupation: all the arguments have been repeated many times. But an ironic comment on my post made me return to splitting. The differences between me and a huge segment of the world (a look at British newspapers shows that the infection is not limited to American usage) can be formulated so: my principle is “split if you must,” while many others seem to stick to the principle “split at all costs.” Our correspondent asserted that nothing justifies keeping the particle to and the verbal form in close proximity. Not quite so. From a historical point of view, the particle is the same word as the preposition to. In Old English, the infinitive could be declined, and, when it followed to, it stood in the dative. In the most clear-cut cases, that dative expressed purpose, as does the substandard modern construction for to (“Simple Simon went a-fishing/ For to catch a whale:/ All the water he could find/ Was in his mother’s pail”). In Old English, catch would have stood in the dative, and the preposition would have been to. Consequently, there is good reason why the two words refuse to be separated. But as time went on, English lost nearly all its endings and the word order became rigid. Then the problem arose what to do with an adverb when one wanted to say something like promised to transform the country quickly but five or more words fought for the privilege of occupying the slot immediately after transform. Those who did not want to restructure the phrase (promised a quick transformation of the country) found the solution in to quickly transform; poets endorsed this usage. But in challenging my opponent to a duel, I would like to ask him what he thinks of the following sentences (which are unacceptable to me): “Minnesota Wild officials are warning fans to only buy tickets from authorized agents….” Wouldn’t to buy tickets only from sound—let us put it—more elegant, even more natural? “The military defended the caretaker government… but pledged to soon change it….” What about to change it soon? My problem remains the same as before: to be or to not be? Tastes differ, and, like Dickens’s Miss Dartle, I am asking merely for information.
No consensus on agreement
1) Those who follow this blog with some regularity may remember that I have a rubric titled “The mood of the tales are gloomy.” Most Americans write so, and I watch this syntax (which is rather old) with equanimity: if the verb is supposed to agree with the word next to it rather than with the subject of the sentence, so be it. Still some sentences are uglier than the others. Here is one of them: “The uprising shows that the fate of Palestinians, about 3 percent of the world’s Arab population, were not the foremost concern on most people’s minds, despite what the West was led to believe.” Curiously, the closest word to the verb is population, but 3 percent overpowered it. From Newsweek: “The next wave of leaders aren’t about to take risks….” 2) The correspondent who commented on my discussion of constructions like “What matters
