Re: Tautological Tendencies


Subject: Re: Tautological Tendencies
From: Will Hochman (hochman@southernct.edu)
Date: Mon Feb 04 2002 - 07:57:18 GMT


I like this explanation of splitting infinitives from Paul Brians, a
professor at Washington State U.

"For the hyper-critical, 'to boldly go where no man has gone before'
should be 'to go boldly. . . .' It is good to be aware that
inserting one or more words between "to" and a verb is not strictly
speaking an error, and is often more expressive and graceful than
moving the intervening words elsewhere; but so many people are
offended by split infinitives that it is better to avoid them except
when the alternatives sound strained and awkward."

Professor Brians created a list of errors that is way cool:

  http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html

If you really want to read Strunk and White:

http://www.bartleby.com/141/index.html

(I read this book with respect but my students prefer On Writing Well
by William Zinsser)

And here's a fine, user-friendly site for grammar and writing:

http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/index.htm

I offer these resources but I'm just too tired to really care at all
about correctness in this bananabowl. I've been reading Language and
the Internet by David Crystal and he would say we are writing and
reading "Netspeak." Crystal writes "The linguistic features will take
time to evolve, especially in a medium where technological facilities
change so quickly and where some degree of nonconformity is
commonplace among users, but eventually they will provide the
community with an occupational dialects which newcomers will have to
learn if they wish to join it" (60). Wasn't it the Who who sang,
"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"? Huffing and puffing about
bad English won't blow my house down. Staying attuned to language and
its wonders is where the fun is, will

-- 
	Will Hochman

Assistant Professor of English Southern Connecticut State University 501 Crescent St, New Haven, CT 06515 203 392 5024

http://www.southernct.edu/~hochman/willz.html

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