Grammar Mavenry

Split Infinitives

The most famous split infinitive is the Star Trek line “to boldly go”. The infinitive form of the verb go is to go, and a couple of centuries ago some authorities started saying that because an infinitive in Latin is always a single word we should treat English infinitives as single words and never put anything between to and the root verb. The idea was that English is derived from Latin and should follow the same rules. Nonsense, of course, as many people have being saying since—it’s perfectly possible and normal to brazenly insert words between the to and the verb. Unfortunately, generations of school-children have been taught to scrupulously avoid split infinitives, to the point where it now pays to meticulously avoid them even though you know better, because you never know when you’ll run into someone who’ll look down their nose at you. For example, you might say that “schoolchildren have been taught to be scrupulous in their avoidance of split infinitives” or that “it now pays to avoid them meticulously”, weakening the directness of what you originally wrote, but hey, at least your words will translate more easily into Latin!

Repetitive Acronyms

I know many bristle at PIN number and ATM machine, but to me they’re a sign of how abbreviations and acronyms evolve into words in their own right. We talk about scuba gear without thinking that we’re actually saying “self-contained underwater breathing apparatus gear”. If someone said nowadays that they were about to don their scuba, they’d get some pretty strange looks.

That Which

I used to use which, but at some point read the that rule and changed to that, and since then have ended up somewhere in the middle: I usually use that, but sometimes use which when that feels better, and don’t mind which other people use. From the point of view of poetic rhythm, though, I sometimes suggest that over which because it’s easier to glide over in speech; saying that uses only the tongue, while saying which means moving the lips as well.

For You and I

A fellow OEDILFer wrote: “Although one commonly hears, today, ‘I’ll get one of those for my sister and I,’ that doesn’t make it correct, and I’d refuse to [approve a limerick] containing that grammatical error.”

I would, as long as it had a note that said something like, “I know, I know, it was my sister and me, but me don’t rhyme with try too good.” It’s possible to show that you’re using loose grammar deliberately without coming across as a fusty old schoolteacher.

Regional Grammar

In British and Australian English we treat certain group nouns differently to Americans when discussing the people who comprise the group rather than the group as a separate entity:

Our staff is excellent. (U.S.)
Our staff are excellent. (U.K.)

The board is considering changes. (U.S.)
The board are considering changes. (U.K.)

My group wins. (U.S.)
My group win. (U.K.)

Other familiar words treated in opposite ways: math (U.S.) and maths (U.K.); sports (U.S.) and sport (U.K.).

Grammar and Grand Puns

There are two types of puns: good ones and bad ones. The good ones play cleverly on two meanings of a word or phrase, both of which make sense in context. The bad ones—the ones that elicit groans—simply point up similar sounds, and often won’t make strict grammatical sense.

This is a bad pun, a throwaway joke, which is why I put it in the mouth of someone drinking too much. The speaker is one of those annoying people who labours a homophone: “You may like ’em, my friends, but Ardbeg to differ! Geddit? Ardbeg! Ah’d beg! I’d beg!”

If these homophones were different phrases spelled similarly, I would ordinarily use the correct (in-context) phrase: I’d beg. But ah’d beg would cause more problems than it would solve, because the connection wouldn’t be as clear to rhotic readers (ah’d beg isn’t arrd-beg)—maybe not even to non-rhotic readers. It has to be laboured, which is why I used the target word.

Reworked from forum and workshopping comments from April 2006–February 2007.