User talk:150.203.177.218

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Hi. I noticed you added a statement to Split infinitive saying the proscription is from Latin. Do you have a cite for that? I know there's one in the article, but it's not backed by any evidence. My opinion is that until someone finds a grammarian who said, "This is impermissible in English because it is impossible in Latin," the claim of a Latin origin is too shaky to have in the lead. On the other hand, if you do know of such a cite, it would be great to put in the article. —JerryFriedman 18:00, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi - There is a quote in The Language Instinct by Stephen Pinker, I'll dig it up. Perhaps he also cites more original research. Cheers--150.203.177.218 23:26, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I found it on p. 386. I just love Amazon book search. It's not what I'm looking for, but I'll have to get back to this later—I just wanted to save you the trouble of looking it up. —JerryFriedman 15:33, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Jerry --150.203.177.218 04:43, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
My problem with it is that I trust the sources in our article when they say that split infinitives were very rare well before the 18th century, and that no one explicitly prohibited them till the 19th. So there was a reason not to put an adverb there (even if no one knows what it was), and it probably had nothing to do with Latin. It looks to me as if Pinker was simply repeating an "academic legend" without doing the research—however good the rest of his book is. I like the quotation from The American Heritage Book of English Usage much better because they have done some research.
Still, though, I have grave doubts about the connection to Latin, and I think we shouldn't mention it in the lead unless we have a verified citation. What do you think? (I wonder whether the American Heritage folks answer e-mails.) —JerryFriedman 22:48, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
I googled split infinitive latin, this is what the Compact Oxford English Dictionary has to say:
split infinitive noun, a construction consisting of an infinitive with an adverb or other word inserted between to and the verb, e.g. she seems to really like it.
— USAGE It is still widely held that splitting infinitives is wrong, a view based on an analogy with Latin. In that language, infinitives consist of only one word... which makes them impossible to split. It is therefore maintained that they should not be split in English either. But English is not the same as Latin. In particular, the placing of an adverb in English is extremely important in giving the appropriate emphasis etc.
There is a lot of stuff on the web about split infinitives and Latin. However, I just realised that split infinitive is a featured page. We should be striving for the upmost of reliable sources. Also, is this what you were referring to by the American Heritage Book of English Usage?
I agree about doing our utmost on a featured article (though it's been changed a lot since it got that status, including when I took out false information about Robert Lowth). The other reason I'd really like to get this right is that I strongly suspect that no one ever said, "You can't do this in English because you can't do it in Latin." However, as you know, that claim is widespread, so if it's wrong, I'd like to correct it. Lately I've been working on other things, but I'm tempted to write to the authors of all the books that make the Latin claim (or all the ones I can find with Google book search) and ask them whether they've got a citation. Something else that might be interesting is an article by George Curme, "Origin and Force of the Split Infinitive," Modern Language Notes, xxix, 1914, pp. 41-45, but I don't know how to get the article. I've just seen references to it.
Yes, that link is what I meant by the American Heritage Book of English Usage. It's quoted in the article, maybe too credulously. —JerryFriedman 22:31, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Try JSTOR for the Modern Language Notes article. I'm pretty sure it is free. There is a link to download the article in full at the top of the page. It isn't obvious where it is. The original split infinitive article mentioned at the start, from the American Journal of Philology, is also on JSTOR .--150.203.177.218 00:11, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Good God, reformd spelling! Anyway, thanks. Apparently I'll have to go to a library to read more than the first page, but I can do that easily, and that article and the one it refers to might be very helpful. —JerryFriedman 16:15, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, the spelling is pretty archaic, even for the 1914 article. Anyhoo, I emailed some copies to you.||150.203.177.218 23:44, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

(I fell off the stack of colons.) Thanks! I'm glad you mentioned the e-mail, since yahoo foolishly put it in my bulk folder. I had problems when I tried to see it yesterday, but it worked fine today. That's just the Hall article, by the way. Did you try to send the one by Curme? My closest library actually doesn't have JSTOR, so if you could send the Curme article, I'd be very grateful. Try sending it to g friedman at sfccnm dot edu (with no spaces). But if it's much work, there are other libraries I can try.

The Hall article is very interesting in not mentioning Latin, in collecting examples, and in putting awareness of the split infinitive back to 1840. The second and third facts should go into the article, I think. In fact, it won't be long till they do, whether you or I put them in there. :-) —JerryFriedman 17:49, 19 October 2006 (UTC)