3 ms·
This Wikipedia article says there is only one case of Shakespeare splitting an infinitive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_infinitive#Modern_English http://e
by Pistos2 17y ago
This Wikipedia article says there is only one case of Shakespeare splitting an infinitive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_infinitive#Modern_English http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_infinitive#Modern_English
The same article seems to suggest that it has both come into and gone out of fashion over the last few centuries. I feel consoled by the examples given where avoiding the split would introduce potentially different meanings than the one originally intended.
- eru 17y agoWe do split infinitives all the time in German. Nobody has been harmed, yet.
- barry-cotter 17y agoUh huh. So sich erinerren ≡ zu sich erinneren? I'm guessing that it's a historical accident that "to" is demed part of the infinitive in English and "zu" isn't in German. Wart, meinst du die getrennte Verben? [Pedant] Mann braucht kein "do" in "We do split" [/Pedant]
- eru 17y ago> [Pedant] Mann braucht kein "do" in "We do split" [/Pedant] I know. I just want to emphasize. > So sich erinerren ≡ zu sich erinneren? Not in that case. (Here we'd have "sich zu erinnern"). An example for splitting the "zu" from a verb. Strange, it looks like we do not do in German that much (or at all). I must have mixed it up with some other construction.