Hello, Neil. On Wed, Dec 28, 2016 at 02:09:10PM +0000, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> Don't forget split infinitives - the construct that is absolutely > forbidden, but no one knows why. I had a production editor who picked me > up every time I used one. I pointed out that that battle was lost as soon > as Star Trek became mainstream. I have a theory about this. If you write "we need to thoroughly think this through", what is the verb? It tends to become "to thoroughlythink" rather than "to think". This coupling of adverb and verb into a single word is probably undesirable. Hence, no split infinitives, please. For what it's worth, in German, when there's a "zu" (to) in front of an infinitive, it is _never_ separated by even the first part of a separable verb, never mind an adverb. > -- > Neil Bothwick -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).
