Greg Ewing writes:
On 5/07/20 3:24 am, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
Amusingly, Strunk (1918) was perfectly happy with split infinitives, though he noted it centered whiteness. (Obviously he didn't put it that way, more along the lines of "some people will look down on you.")
Um... what?
Are you saying that people who split infinitives are usually black,
Of course not. Base rates suggest they're mostly white.
and the people who look down on them are white?
Doesn't it pretty much go without saying, that the people who look down on split infinitives are elite (and white), that white people look down on black achievements (despite eating them up in the mass media!), and that white supremacists literally live to look down on black people? There's no necessary relation between your two questions. Correlation, yes, but that doesn't help understanding here.
If so, it would seem that Strunk is actually standing up for black people here.
Indeed. One reason why I didn't and don't support that commit.
(I don't actually believe this has anything to do with race, I'm just trying *to fully understand* your reasoning.)
Aw, shucks, I'm so glad you asked! But this isn't the place. I filed off the obvious PII and put the content of the argument in my blog. First, before we click, let's all top up our beverages. This is not simple. It's complex, maybe even complicated. (That's a Zen-based argument against white supremacy.<wink/>) https://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp/Blog/20200706.020926.txt Sincere regards, Steve