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, and the people who look down on them are white? If so,
it would seem that Strunk is actually standing up for black
people here.
(I don't actually believe this has anything to do with race,
I'm just trying *to fully understand* your reasoning.)
Whatever he meant, nothing about split infinitives is in my 1918 original copy of Strunk's rules, which is basically a compilation of common-sense ways to not write like a legal paper or dissertation trying to baffle the reviewers into approval. Which, sadly, continues into this day.
-Em