Got a question about English language, pronunciation, usage, punctuation? Post it in the combox and I'll be happy to answer it if I can, or find out the answer for you if I can't.
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Are split infinitives always to be avoided? I tend to be pedantic in that way, but many stylists argue against me...
ReplyDeleteAuctores disputant - the experts disagree on this one.
ReplyDeleteSplit infinitives can sound clumsy and in such cases should be avoided if possible. There is no reason to say "They decided to not go", and it sounds much neater to say "They decided not to go".
Plenty of experts these days say that the rule about not splitting infinitives is one of the rules made up when the study of English grammar was based on the structure of Latin grammar. Since Latin infinitives can't be split (because they consist of one word), it was held that English infinitives shouldn't be split either.
However, today it is recognised that English grammar is very different from Latin grammar so that the rule doesn't really make sense.
In some cases, though not many, a split infinitive is needed for accuracy, as in the sentence "The applicant asked the committee to at least consider his proposal." If the phrase "at least" was moved to a different position, it would alter the meaning of the sentence. (I owe this example to the late great Peter Scott.)
When I write NVQs, is it NVQ's or NVQs? I think the second is correct but my colleagues do not agree.
ReplyDeletePublishers prefer NVQs, just as they prefer the 1990s (not the 1990's). There is no reason for an apostrophe before the s, and no explanation of it.
DeleteWhat's wrong with 'The applicant asked the committee, at least to consider his proposal'? That seems to me to convey the same sense without the barbarism of the split infinitive.
ReplyDeleteMy response also gives rise to another query: to place the ? at the end of the quoted phrase, inside the inverted comma, would be, I think, the publishers' standard practice; but that would seem to me to be misleading in this context. Was I correct to close the inverted comma first?
Ben,
ReplyDeleteYour suggestion gives the comma a very unusual job to do, to say the least (though I might not go so far as to call it barbaric). Look at your sentence without the phrase "at least", and ask yourself whether you would normally put a comma after "committee".
I would say your positioning of the final inverted comma and the question mark is not only correct but is the order on which good publishers would insist.
Thank you for your time and for your clear answers. I prefer giving the comma odd jobs (to reflect how I would use pause and intonation to make the meaning clear in spoken speech) to the split infinitive solution; but I have already owned that I am a pedant in that regard.
ReplyDeleteBen
DeleteI'm all in favour of pedantry! I did a recent google search for the phrase "pedants of the world unite" and it threw up, I seem to recall, around 34000 results. I didn't have time to pursue it at that point, but I think there could be a case for a Pedants' Union or some such thing.