Yes, the Monster of Prescriptive Grammar has reared its ugly head, and boy did it choose the occasion to do so – the inauguration of the first African-American president of the United States. For those who watched President Obama take the oath of office, I’m sure you found it awkward, ridiculous, shameful or just bizarre that Chief Justice Roberts – one of the most erudite and experienced constitutional experts of the country and the head of the Supreme Court, that is, the body responsible for constitutional review – bungled the 35-word oath, which Steven Pinker asserted are “among the best-known words in the Constitution”. How could the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court botch this short and sweet, and most certainly rehearsed, oath of office, enshrined in the sacred document which he (after the prez perhaps) is most responsible to preserve and enforce?
Well, according to the Steven Pinker (chairman of the usage panel of The American Heritage Dictionary and psychology professor at Harvard), Chief Justice Roberts was so brainwashed and brow beaten by the Monster of Prescriptive Grammar that “his inner copy editor overrode any instincts toward strict constructionism and unilaterally amended the Constitution by moving the adverb ‘faithfully’ away from the verb”. Chief Justice Roberts screwed up the oath because, apparently, his extensive social conditioning by Catholic schools and elitist institutions wouldn’t permit him to use an adverb between an auxiliary and the corresponding verb, because split infinitives aren’t possible in Latin, yes Latin! The elitist affinity for Latin within the Anglo-Saxon world, especially for those who are Catholic, forced young children as well as adults not to use adverbs between the two separate words that make of the infinitive verb in English – “to bungle”, for example. This stupid rule was then, even more stupidly, applied for auxiliaries – “will bungle faithfully” instead of “will faithfully bungle”.
Pinker explains that although the ungrammaticality of split infinitives (or split verbs) is bogus, “it found its way into The Texas Law Review Manual on Style, which is the arbiter of usage for many law review journals”. And, now, unfortunately, the Monster of Prescriptive Grammar found its way to steps of the U.S. Capitol to rear it ugly nasty despicable head in front of the President and his family, the millions of people in attendance and, probably, hundreds of millions watching by television. May President Obama and Secretary Duncan avenge this bungled moment of history by slaying the Monster of Prescriptive Grammar with their newfound policy swords
, for the honor of our 44th President and, more importantly, for the creativity, freedom and psychological wellbeing of America’s youth and future generations!!
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Tags: Chief Justice Roberts, constitution, English, inauguration, Latin, Obama, prescriptive grammar, split infinitives
Interesting theory.
However Gouverneur Morris, the man generally credited with the actual work of writing the Constitution (i.e., putting the words on paper with pen and ink), was a graduate of King’s College (now Columbia University) in New York City. In order to even get into King’s College at that time one needed to “give a rational account of the Latin and Greek Grammar, to render Sallust, Caesar’s Commentaries, or some part of Cicero’s Works, into English, the Gospels, at Least, from the Greek into Latin, and to translate correctly both English into Latin, and Latin into English.”
Morris sounds awfully elitist by the standards above – even though he was Episcopalian and not Catholic – and yet he still managed to split his infinitive with no apparent difficulty.
Perhaps we need a new theory?
While we’re at it let’s try one without the words “elitist” and “Catholic” in it. Everyone in my generation (I’m 65) was taught not to split their infinitives in grammar school. And it didn’t matter whether the school was public or parochial; they all taught the same thing in the 1950s.
good theory
There is obviously a lot to know about this. I think you made some good points in here.
Nearly two centuries ago, a now unknown author stated in a magazine article that infinitives were not to be split. (“Inaccuracies of Diction. Grammar.” The New England Magazine, vol. VII, 1834. Boston.) This is the first known written instance of this rule. You’ll be pleased to know that the rule is not actually fact.
The maker of the split infinitive rule was evidently annoyed by newspaper editors who “have not had the advantage of a good education” and who therefore frequently separated to from the verb by an adverb. He had had enough. After giving the rule, the author goes further with his little snit: he admits that “some of the most celebrated authors” engage in exceptions to this rule, but feeling superior, he quickly adds that this may result from “carelessness and haste.” Most likely, he concludes, these authors “were restrained by no written positive rule.” The insolence fairly drips from his article. English grammarians of the day actually took this stuff seriously—schoolchildren and authors didn’t, however.
John Wycliffe split the first infinitive in print with an adverbial phrase in the mid-1300s. William Shakespeare, on the other hand, split none. English diction apparently changed in the late 18th Century as adverbials began to appear consistently in written infinitive constructions, and split infinitives are found in the writings of Benjamin Franklin, William Wordsworth, Abraham Lincoln, and George Eliot.
As we’ve witnessed above, poor diction and clumsy sentences, among other catastrophes, are as easily caused by split infinitives as by rigorous efforts to avoid them. Write well.
Regarding shakespeare had no Split infinitives- consider Sonnet 142: “To pity may deserve to pitied be”–and Coriolanus Act I Scii, line 5 “To bodily act ere Rome had circumvention”
Thanks to art orme, I have newly discovered knowledge–always a blessing. And I will amend my background on split infinitives. As before, readers are encouraged to freely split infinitives as long they produce readable prose.