The New York Times blog takes up the question of split infinitives, and begins with this item from the Times stylebook:
split infinitives are accepted by grammarians but irritate many readers. When a graceful alternative exists, avoid the construction: to show the difference clearly is better than to clearly show the difference. (Do not use the artificial clearly to show the difference.) When the split is unavoidable, accept it: He was obliged to more than double the price.
So far, not bad. I like the "to clearly show" version more, but at least the stylebook rejects the "split infinitives are ungrammatical" myth, while acknowledging that authors should keep in mind some readers' preferences.
Still, look at what even a measured preference against split infinitives yields:
The Treasury has promised to independently evaluate potential conflicts, but it appears that officials plan to start with the firms’ own self-assessment of any problems.
This may be a closer call [than the previous example], but a slight rephrasing like “promised independent evaluations of potential conflicts” would avoid the problem.
Yes, it will avoid the problem of irritating some readers who dislike split infinitives -- but only by changing a verb phrase to a noun phrase. Verb phrases ("promised to independently evaluate potential conflicts") tend to be more active and engaging than their nominalized forms ("promised independent evaluations of potential conflicts"). They tend to be slightly simpler grammatically (note that the nominalization requires an extra prepositional phrase). And they often make clearer who is doing what: In this very example, for instance, the original indicates the Treasury will independently evaluate potential conflicts, while the revised version leaves that uncertain (since it just says there would be independent evaluations).
That's why avoid nominalization is itself common usage advice, and in my view better advice than avoid split infinitives, because it deals with real lack of clarity and vigor rather than just with accommodating the views of some readers. Again, I acknowledge that accommodating reader preferences is something that writers, especially writers at for-profit institutions, often need to do. But it's important to recognize, I think, that this particular preference against split infinitives can be costly.
Perhaps it's possible to rewrite the sentence in a way that avoids the split infinitive without nominalizations or other clunky constructions. But even if that's so, it's still worth focusing on the rewrite suggested by the Times blogger, a professional editor "who is also in charge of The Times’s style manual." If the desire to avoid split infinitives pulls this experienced editor into making the sentence less active, more complex, and more opaque, it's a fair bet that it will often do the same to other, less experienced editors, even if enough thinking can yield a supposedly better solution.
Thanks to Prof. Sam Levine for the pointer.
Next?
Modern writing suffers from so many other problems that we shouldn't be concerned with nonproblems.
This could mean that the Treasury is promising to evaluate potential conflicts independently of other potential conflicts, not independently of the firms.
-or-
"Boldly to go where no man has gone before."
I like the first better, and damn the split infinitives.
It might help someone's legal writing, to some extent, to take a brief seminar in object-oriented programming (say, thirty minutes). A good brief on a detailed regulatory matter strikes me as a problem relating to managed complexity. Computer programming has a set of tools designed to deal with that issue (and the solutions created are one of the most significant technical accomplishments of the last 40 years).
It took me quite a while to figure out that this is why conspicuous attempts to avoid splitting infinitives irritate the living crap out of me. Put the damn adverb where it belongs -- after "to" and right before the verb.
Occasionally there are situations where the sentence reads better with the adverb in a different place, but putting it in the middle of the infinitive should be the default.
"To go boldly where no man has gone before."
I'm not saying that the split infinitive is bad. But just because it's possible to write badly in an attempt to avoid the split infinitive is not proof that avoiding the split infinitive requires bad writing.
Adverbs follow the verb all the time in normal English; you're inventing a style guideline that's at least as phony as the one Eugene Volokh is complaining about.
"To go boldly where no man has gone before" means that you intend to go in a bold fashion.
"To boldly go where no man has gone before" means that you intend to go, even though going at all requires boldness (which was clearly the point of the declaration).
Am I the only one humming the "Star Trek" theme at this point?
You are correct that we adverbs generally follow verbs. But english speakers generally do expect modifiers near the specific word modified. It's also nice when the verb is close to the thing it "acts" on.
The NY times example didn't show the full problem because evaluate acts on the two word "potential conflicts". But let's suppose they plan to evaluate "potential conflicts between participants".
Here's a sentence fragment with the split infinitive:
"to independently evaluate potential conflicts between participants".
"independently" is next to "evaluate". Evaluate is next to "potential conflicts between participants". No one needs to diagram a sentence.
Let's move the adverb to the end.
"to evaluate potential conflicts between participants independently".
The there are now four words between the verb and its modifier. I can deal with it, but putting that much space between a verb and it's modifier does not improve reading comprehension.
Let's just pull the adverb out of the infinitive:
"to evaluate independently potential conflicts between participants."
There is now a word between "evaluate" and the thing being evaluated. The reader needs to blink a bit to separate the modifier that describe "how" and "what".
This may not bother you, but I find it jarring. It's true this problem existed even without the addition of "between participants", but at least the shorter sentence ended. My brain didn't have wait so long before creating a mental sentence diagram.
Of course, we can make things worse:
"to evaluate potential conflicts independently between participants."
Ugh! And then there is the non-solution:
"independently to evaluate potential conflicts between participants. "
Ouch!
I rarely split infinitives. But sometimes, I find the alternatives grating.
Like Connecticut Lawyer, if the goal of my writing was to persuade a particular person known to hate split infinitives, I would carefully reword any and all sentences in which they were split. However, I am under the impression the NYTimes is writing for a general audience.
I for one, am more likely to read lively clear straightforward writing. Quite often the fake "no split infinitive rules" makes this more difficult. It's true the Connecticut Lawyer's judge might cancel his subscription after coming across a split infinitive-- but the number of readers gained by the livelier writing would surely make up for that.
Do you not know what "if at all possible" means?
In the sentence "He wrote badly," it is, in fact, not possible (i.e., grammatical) to put the adverb before the verb.
I assume that by "all the time" you do, in fact, mean "frequently." In which case I'll agree with you, but that means that in some constructions they should (follow the verb) and in others they shouldn't; it does NOT mean that they always can.
Alan Gunn:
Sadly, I see this kind of construction ("hideous" and "vile" are two good adjectives to describe it) in the writing of ordinary people, some of whom I know personally, and it really makes me cringe.
You're arguing that He badly wrote is actually wrong (ungrammatical)? Sounds funny because it's not a form that we typically see, but wrong? I'm not sure that the relatively fixed order we are used to in modern english is absolutely necessary to be correct. Personally i find archaic word order constructions quite poetic in the right circumstance. (Maybe not for legal writing or news reporting but that's a different story.)
As I read it, your suggested rephrasing changes the sense. In the first, the Treasury was promising that it, the Treasury, would conduct an independent evaluation. In the second, the Treasury is vaguely promising that an independent evaluation (by whom?) will occur. Given that the whole issue seems to be the degree of disinterestedness of the firms' self-assessments, the distinction is probably important.
I certainly hope so.
Older people often recall being taught in school that splitting infinitives is gramatically wrong so they stick to that view even though there is no such rule and that rule doesn't make any sense in English anyway.
It's less of an issue among younger people, since schools have, apparently, abandoned the idea of teaching grammar.
- Lt. Thomas Keefer, The Caine Mutiny
Other than that, nothing to add.
I believe this version is more correct:
It's less of an issue among younger people, since schools have, apparently, abandoned the idea of teaching fake grammar rules.
For what it's worth, I'm 49 years old. Does that make me an older or younger person? Are you an older or younger person? How about KeithK?
The decision not to waste time teaching or imposing fake grammar rules opens time for more other lessons. With luck the new lessons are less idiotic than the one they replaced.
That is, think of "independently evaluate" as a verb. I independently evaluate, you independently evaluate, he independently evaluates, I have independently evaluated, and so on.
Infinitive: to independently evaluate.
No problem. In Latin, verbs are one word. In english, verb phrases can be many words.
Boldly he wrote, fearfully did he act. ;)
I always try to follow Jefferson's advice: "Where strictness of grammar does not weaken expression, it should be attended to in complaisance to the purists…. But where by small grammatical negligences the energy of an idea is condensed, or a word stands for a sentence, I hold the grammatical rigor in contempt."
Of course, if one is measured by one's enemies, then being belittled by William Ayers is an honor indeed.
Have you ever tried to read anything written by an accountant? Maybe if you paid attention, you could write as clearly as lawyers.
You mean like the Second Amendment?
EV said:
Someone whose native tongue is English, and who approaches writing in French as a matter of translating English into French, will often produce barbarities in French. That does not prove that adherence French grammar produces barbarities; it proves the writer is not well-trained to write in French.
Similarly, someone whose native style is English that allows split infinitive, and approaches writing without them as a matter of translation, will often produce barbarities. This does not prove that adherence to the artificial convention of avoiding the split infinitive produces barbarities; it proves the writer is not well-trained to avoid the split infinitive.
TimK, your "rule" is just as artificial and unsupported by English use as the ban on the split infinitive. A rule which cannot apply in the simplest cases is obvious nonsense, put forward only to advance the ridiculous position that the infinitive must be split wherever possible, just because.
Malvolio, you actually tempt me into arguing in favor of the rule against split infinitives. (So far, I've merely been arguing that it is harmless in the hands of a well-trained writer.) If we grant your difference in meanings, then the "boldly" in the original is nothing more than a case of "tell, not show". We should prefer the form "To go where no man has gone before", and let readers/listeners/viewers evaluate for themselves whether to go at all is bold.
Lucia, no need to spam gratuitous barbarities when my first post to the thread already makes my approach clear. Yes, the non-splitting form requires the reader pay closer attention to the text than the non-splitting, and that is a disadvantage. Countervailing that, above it was pointed out that the bare "independently" is vague. In the form where the infinitive is not split, clarification can be easily appended immediately after the word "independently" (that is, "The Treasury has promised to evaluate potential conflicts independently of the firms, but it appears that officials plan to start with the firms’ own self-assessment of any problems.") It's not nearly as easy to do if one splits the infinitive.
If meaning isn't compromised the sentence diagram with the fewest number of edges probably ought to be favored.
Am I the only one who sees this and wonders if "poorly" is a preferable adverb?
In my opinion, rules that make writing more difficult to comprehend are big disadvantage. Separating placing large distances between the verb and its modifier or between the verb and its object is difficult to read.
I think Duffy Pratt's observation about the inclusion of "independently" was astute. The word "independently" is not ambiguous; it's redundant. Your suggestion to expand the single word to a phrase is not an improvement.
Many of my students seem to find it too troublesome to even use that function.
Many of my students seem to find it too troublesome even to use that function.
I have long railed against what Eugene calls "nominalization" — and I like call the "nounified verb" — on my blog at wordofthecourt.blogspot.com.
I remember reading "Language" by Edward Sapir, where he addresses a similar problem in English in 1912, with the question of whether "who did you see?" is more correct than "whom did you see?" His verdict as a linguist rather than a schoolmarm was with the former, and that the latter would eventually disappear despite the argument that it was grammatically correct.
In other cases, we typically put adjectives and adverbs in front of what they modify. This means this is where people expect the modifier to go as a matter of natural (rather than schoolmarm) grammar. Consider the following examples:
The red wagon.
He quickly went to the store.
The problem with some tenses in modern English is that we require modifiers to get to the tense. Was going. To go. etc.... These cause conflicts between what are natural rules almost everywhere else in English and the desire to keep the tense of the verb clear. In one of these cases (you guessed it, the infinitive), the modifier really is a preposition for all intents and purposes (both etymological and use-oriented).
So to the normal English-listening ear, "to independently investigate" is not that different from "to the red house" even though the formal structure is differentiable.
As we move to participles though, the case gets murkier as ambiguity can become a problem. Consider the following examples:
He was clearly speaking.
He was speaking, clearly.
He was speaking clearly.
Which one means something different than the other two?
I suppose the real "solution" would be for us to all agree to go back to being a synthetic, 5-case inflected language like we had in Old English so we don't have to depend on word order and can put the infinitive as the last word in the sentence most of the time.....
i promised to independently evaluate potential conflicts
i promised independent evaluations of potential conflicts
Eh? Same number of words in each formulation.
It's just that one has an infinitive while the other has a prepositional phrase, each of which is "extra" compared to the other.
But that's because you only used part of the sentence in the second case but the whole sentence in the first case. Your proper comparison:
The Treasury has promised to independently evaluate potential conflicts, but it appears that officials plan to start with the firms’ own self-assessment of any problems.
The Treasury has promised independent evaluations of potential conflicts, but it appears that officials plan to start with the firms’ own self-assessment of any problems.
Perfectly clear as to who is doing what.
Didn't we just have this discussion?
He beautifully played.
He badly wrote.
Jane well sang.
In idiomatic English, sometimes the adverb precedes the verb, sometimes it follows. There is no "typically" about it.
In the first sentence, it sounds like the Treasury itself will perform the evaluations. In the second sentence, it sounds like the Treasury will see to it that some independent body will do the evaluation. So, in the second sentence, its not clear to me who is doing what.
As I've said before, it seems to me that the word "independently" is not needed in this sentence, especially if the Treasury will conduct the evaluations.
Either way, a simpler and more active way to write the same sentence is to avoid the infinitive entirely, and its easy to do without converting any verb into a noun:
"The Treasury has promised it will independently evaluate potential conflicts, but it appears that officials plan to start with the firms' own self-assessment of any problems."
This comes at the cost of a single word.