Rejected by ST Forum
Go on, dare to boldly split the infinitive
I refer to the letter "Go on, dare to boldly split the infinitive" (St, May 16) by Dennis Bloodworth.
While Bloodworth' observations about purists' pernickety tastes deserve some thought, we should, however, be careful about jumping on the anti-grammar bandwagon, a tendency, which, unfortunately today, is gaining currency even among the academicians and the educated-users of the English language.
Contrary to the 19th century, when grammarians and usage-writers like Curme, Lounsbury and J.L. Hall ruled the English language, today there is an unmistakable leaning towards pooh-poohing everything that is grammatical. The fad has such stronghold on the users of the language that even responsible writers and speakers consciously shy away from being precise and careful about rules of grammar lest they are misunderstood.
An unwary reader reading Bloodworth will, therefore, run away with the thought (which I concede, is not Bloodworth's though) that anything will do: that it is all right to split infinitive and that the distinction between "who" and "whom" is only pedantic.
After an enduring battle between the savants and modern-users about split infinitive, there is now a wary compromise: there is nothing grammatically wrong with split infinitive but we do not split infinitives except when splitting one improves clarity. In some sentences, particularly ones where the infinitive comes after a copula and those with a negative like "never" or "not", the infinitive is customarily not split. For instance, a usage book gives two of such examples,
"Molee's quest for a perfect replacement for English seems never to have ended - Baron 1982
"Ö.human qualities that even the most zealous military office must possess if he is effectively to command men - William Styron
Bloodworth who freely quoted Fowler, Gowers and Eric Partridge, however, gives the readers the misimpression that these writers, actually, made light of the rules governing "who" and "whom". In his book, "Modern English Usage", Fowler devotes 5 lengthy pages to the correct use of "who" and "whom", coming heavily down on careless speakers and writers who use the words interchangeably. The two examples from the bible that Bloodworth cited were those that Folwer quoted to exemplify his point about abusage surrounding the two words.
Eric Partridge and Sir Ernest Gowers, the other two erudite writers, are known for their particularity about the correct use of the English language. Anyone, who knows their works, will be flummoxed by Bloodworth's interpretation of these writers' examples. A close study of Partridge's "Usage and Abusage" and Gowers' "The Complete Plain Words" will show that they have taken immense pains to distinguish between "who" and "whom", giving varied examples from several sources to demonstrate the constant abusage of the two words. While Gowers says "the proper use of the two words should present no difficulty", Partridge calls their abusage "frequent error". I would, therefore, think that Bloodworth is, sadly, mistaken about their views.
Nonetheless, I would agree with most of Bloodworth's other comments, especially the one about ending a sentence with a preposition.
Selvakumar s/o Prakasam