[Gllug] Schoolboy Grammar

[Nix]

On 29 Mar 2012, John G. Walker said:

>
>
> On Thu, 29 Mar 2012 16:09:51 +0100 ilmari at ilmari.org (Dagfinn Ilmari
> Mannsåker) wrote:
>
>> Doesn't look very split to me.  Did you mean "to finally have gone
>> away"?
>
> That's even better. It depends, of course, whether you consider the verb
> to be "go" or "have". This shows the absurdity of the rule, since it
> isn't then clear whther I've broken it or not!

In any case, the languages to which it truly applies (e.g. Latin) don't
need it, because splitting an infinitive is impossible there. It's only
possible in English because 'to' is a separate word (not in fact part of
the verb at all, but a marker attached to the verb's infinite form, so
the rule is doubly ridiculous).

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