Geez, Pook, in your world there are no rules at all, I guess!
Read
this.
Yes, interesting. Thanks for that Faldage. I didn't read it before making my last post, but (insofar as I understand it after speed-reading it once) I think I agree with most of what he says there. I think that's what I was trying to say. I certainly agree that the "two extreme ones are both utterly insane." (ie extreme descriptivism v. extreme prescriptivism)
He mentioned split infinitives as one of those hoary old chestnuts people like to argue over. I used to be one of those who insisted that "one ought to never split infinitives"
but have since been convinced by the Pookwife (who is an editor and indexer and has done courses in English usage) of the silliness of that extreme position. I think there are some instances where it is still grammatically undesirable to split an infinitive, but there are others where splitting it conveys better the meaning that you want to get across. The real question is not "have I split an infinitive" but "have I communicated the real meaning (and or emphasis) of what I want to say."
