Tuesday, April 10, 2012

A brief argument in favor of splitting infinitives

I was listening to a public radio story on Facebook's recent billion-dollar acquisition and I heard the reporter say that the first order of business was "not to screw [the company] up." Of course, what he meant was that the first order of business was to not screw it up. The first statement simply says that there were other things more important than screwing up.

If it comes down to a choice between splitting an infinitive and not saying what you mean, always take the first option.

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