[Gllug] Monthly GLLUG grammar report (Seriously OT now!)

[Dylan]

On Tuesday 26 November 2002 14:00, John Winters wrote:
> On Tue, 2002-11-26 at 13:13, Dylan wrote:
> > On Tuesday 26 November 2002 02:26, Jonathan Harker wrote:
> > > On Tuesday 26 Nov 2002 12:53 pm, Bruce Richardson wrote:
> > > > If you're determined to be pedantic, then an apostrophe is allowed in
> > > > the plural of acronyms and abbreviations.
> > >
> > > Fine.
> > >
> > > Of course, don't get me started on whose/who's or who/whom
> > >
> > > Or split infinitives - Star Trek's "To boldly go" has caused much
> > > wailing and gnashing of teeth ever since.
> >
> > THERE IS NO REASON TO NOT SPLIT AN "INFINITIVE".
>
> Except that it can make your sentence mean something different from what
> you meant it to mean.  For instance, I suspect the meaning that you
> meant to convey there was, "There is no reason to avoid splitting an
> infinitive", but the sentence as written means something else.

I have to admit to deliberacy there...
But the converse of your point is also true. Sometimes the adverb HAS to split 
the infinitive, for semantic/pragmatic or metrical reasons - and the Star 
Trek example is a prime case in point. "To boldly go" connotes that the 
go-ing itself is bold, in "to go boldly" the people doing the go-ing are 
bold, and "boldly to go" is clumsy.

>
> Splitting an infinitive is one of those oddities.  It can be very
> clumsy.  Equally an attempt to avoid it at short range (after the
> sentence has already been half formed) can be equally clumsy.  The
> tidiest solution is usually to avoid the problem arising.

You're quite right, but I would argue that these are stylistic issues, and to 
that extent I have no problem with them. The thing which, overarchingly, 
grates my wisdom teeth is the interpretation of a stylistic guideline with a 
syntactic 'rule' (or more accurately, principle.) This bears on the learning 
by rote issue - people make clumsy performance errors in part because the 
consciously learnt rules of rhetoric and style only partially post-filter the 
spontaneous utterance.

>
> As a parallel, the language seems to be reaching the point where "they"
> is acceptable as a singular pronoun for an individual of unknown sex.
> OTOH, it will still grate with some people and can usually be avoided
> tidily simply by re-arranging the sentence.

Surely you'd agree that use of they as singular is preferable to the earlier 
(and still remaining) he or she circumlocutions, or even worse (s)he? 
Crosslinguistically, 3rd person plural is often used as 3rd person singular 
indeterminate. In a couple of generations it will be fully established in 
English, and the journalist below would then not over-use it.

>
> I was listening to a journalist the other evening who was devoted to
> using "they" in this way - even when it was pointless.  "When the
> expectant mother is ready, they are taken downstairs to the delivery
> room."  It's just clumsy.
>

Dylan

-- 
"Sweet moderation
Heart of this nation
Desert us not, we are
Between the wars"

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