4 ms·

You've misquoted the amendment. It is "the right to peaceably assemble." The Constitution was written before the invention of grammar nazis, and before Victoria

by rquantz 12y ago

You've misquoted the amendment. It is "the right to peaceably assemble." The Constitution was written before the invention of grammar nazis, and before Victorian snobs decided you couldn't split an infinitive verb.

graycat 12y ago
The excuse I heard was that an infinitive in English is two words but corresponds to a single word in Latin, and, of course, as all good Latin experts know, English grammar should be as much like Latin as possible! So, since can't split a single word infinitive in Latin, we shouldn't in English! So, "to be" is okay but "to not be" would be bad. "To an infinitive split" would be awful! So, string me up if I were to badly split an infinitive!
- jcrites 12y ago
  Sometimes it just sounds better. Why it does is an interesting question for linguists. "To boldly go where no man has gone before" "We are determined to completely and utterly eradicate the disease." "She wants to gradually get rid of her teddy bears." "Writers should learn to not split infinitives." It's also not always possible to eliminate the split infinitive, or the infinitive, without changing the direct or implied meaning of the sentence. "She wants to get rid of her teddy bears gradually" works fairly well. "Boldly going where no man has gone before" is close, but doesn't capture the same challenge, summons, call to action as the original. Nor does it sound as pleasing.
  - graycat 12y ago
    For the stuff inside the split infinitive, it can to tough to know where else to put it. So, what would we want? "Boldly to go where ..." or "To go boldly where ..."? To be really clear that 'boldly' modifies 'to go', it's easiest to split the infinitive. Your "She wants to gradually get rid of her teddy bears." is terrific! There's just no good other place to put 'gradually'! In case you misunderstood me, for grammar for English, really I have no sympathy for what the heck Latin did!
    - mrpoptart 12y ago
      > There's just no good other place to put 'gradually'! She wants to get rid of her teddy bears gradually.
      - tekromancr 12y ago
        Not an english expert, but would "She wants, gradually, to get rid of her teddy bears" work?
        graycat 12y ago
        Problem is, without thinking about the likely meaning, at first glance it's not clear what 'gradually' modifies, that is, it may modify 'wants', that is, her wanting is only gradual and not yet full; such are some of the possibilities of subtlety of meaning with the English language!
        tekromancr 12y ago
        Ohh, I see the confusion there, but I like the ambiguity it causes. It reminds me of "Pretty little girl's school"
      - graycat 12y ago
        I thought of that but regarded 'gradually' as too far, too many words away, from 'get', the word it is modifying.
        aninhumer 12y ago
        It's not as good as the split infinitive, but it works okay despite the distance, because it's modifying the entire sentence.
        graycat 12y ago
        When I was diagramming sentences, they never let me modify "the entire sentence"! Maybe the reason was that Latin never did that!
areyousure 12y ago
No, your parent comment has in fact literally quoted the amendment. For example, on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Text http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_S... you will find the full text as follows: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Please be more careful before posting in the future. You may find it interesting to examine the original text of the Bill of Rights, where the first amendment appears as Article the third: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Bill_of_Rights_Pg1of1_AC.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Bill_of_R... (Article the first has never been ratified. Article the second was ratified in 1992. Articles three through twelve were ratified as the first ten amendments in 1791.)
- rquantz 12y ago
  Please be more careful before posting in the future. Interestingly, to me at least, I read the quote, and remembered the text with a split infinitive. To check that I was right, I googled the text of the amendment, which google helpfully displayed above the search results. Seeing that I was right, I copied and pasted the text from google into the comment box here. What I did not do was read the whole text that google provided, only the relevant clause. If I had read the whole thing I would have realized it was a paraphrase rather than the actual text. I offer my humblest and deepest possible apologies to the OP, and to you. However, I probably won't be much more careful when posting in the future. I try to keep my statements of fact on HN accurate by checking at least some source. In the end that's as far as I'm going to go.
  - areyousure 12y ago
    Thank you for the explanation of how that came about. Cheers!

by rquantz 12y ago

graycat 12y ago

The excuse I heard was that an infinitive in English is two words but corresponds to a single word in Latin, and, of course, as all good Latin experts know, English grammar should be as much like Latin as possible! So, since can't split a single word infinitive in Latin, we shouldn't in English! So, "to be" is okay but "to not be" would be bad. "To an infinitive split" would be awful! So, string me up if I were to badly split an infinitive!

jcrites 12y ago
Sometimes it just sounds better. Why it does is an interesting question for linguists. "To boldly go where no man has gone before" "We are determined to completely and utterly eradicate the disease." "She wants to gradually get rid of her teddy bears." "Writers should learn to not split infinitives." It's also not always possible to eliminate the split infinitive, or the infinitive, without changing the direct or implied meaning of the sentence. "She wants to get rid of her teddy bears gradually" works fairly well. "Boldly going where no man has gone before" is close, but doesn't capture the same challenge, summons, call to action as the original. Nor does it sound as pleasing.
- graycat 12y ago
  For the stuff inside the split infinitive, it can to tough to know where else to put it. So, what would we want? "Boldly to go where ..." or "To go boldly where ..."? To be really clear that 'boldly' modifies 'to go', it's easiest to split the infinitive. Your "She wants to gradually get rid of her teddy bears." is terrific! There's just no good other place to put 'gradually'! In case you misunderstood me, for grammar for English, really I have no sympathy for what the heck Latin did!
  - mrpoptart 12y ago
    > There's just no good other place to put 'gradually'! She wants to get rid of her teddy bears gradually.
    - tekromancr 12y ago
      Not an english expert, but would "She wants, gradually, to get rid of her teddy bears" work?
      - graycat 12y ago
        Problem is, without thinking about the likely meaning, at first glance it's not clear what 'gradually' modifies, that is, it may modify 'wants', that is, her wanting is only gradual and not yet full; such are some of the possibilities of subtlety of meaning with the English language!
        tekromancr 12y ago
        Ohh, I see the confusion there, but I like the ambiguity it causes. It reminds me of "Pretty little girl's school"
    - graycat 12y ago
      I thought of that but regarded 'gradually' as too far, too many words away, from 'get', the word it is modifying.
      - aninhumer 12y ago
        It's not as good as the split infinitive, but it works okay despite the distance, because it's modifying the entire sentence.
        graycat 12y ago
        When I was diagramming sentences, they never let me modify "the entire sentence"! Maybe the reason was that Latin never did that!

areyousure 12y ago

No, your parent comment has in fact literally quoted the amendment. For example, on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Text http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_S... you will find the full text as follows: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Please be more careful before posting in the future. You may find it interesting to examine the original text of the Bill of Rights, where the first amendment appears as Article the third: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Bill_of_Rights_Pg1of1_AC.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Bill_of_R... (Article the first has never been ratified. Article the second was ratified in 1992. Articles three through twelve were ratified as the first ten amendments in 1791.)

rquantz 12y ago
Please be more careful before posting in the future. Interestingly, to me at least, I read the quote, and remembered the text with a split infinitive. To check that I was right, I googled the text of the amendment, which google helpfully displayed above the search results. Seeing that I was right, I copied and pasted the text from google into the comment box here. What I did not do was read the whole text that google provided, only the relevant clause. If I had read the whole thing I would have realized it was a paraphrase rather than the actual text. I offer my humblest and deepest possible apologies to the OP, and to you. However, I probably won't be much more careful when posting in the future. I try to keep my statements of fact on HN accurate by checking at least some source. In the end that's as far as I'm going to go.
- areyousure 12y ago
  Thank you for the explanation of how that came about. Cheers!