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Splitting the infinitive

In prehistoric times it was a major no-no to cheekily separate the particle ‘to’ from its infinitive verb. ‘Do not split the infinitive’ was the law of the land. ‘What in the world are you talking about?’ responds anyone born after 1960. In fact, since that time the rule has more or less been ignored.

And then came its death knell, on September 8, 1966:

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before. – Star Trek

There is no longer any controversy. There is nothing wrong with inserting a word between ‘to’ and ‘verb’. The problem is, most often the inserted word is the lowest of grammatical life forms, an adverb. The lowly adverb has flourished (despite ending in ‘-ly’, ‘lowly’ in this sentence is an adjective, and ‘adverb’ is a noun. Had to get that out there). Perhaps an adverb’s highest honor is to breezily insert itself into an otherwise mundane sentence.

An adverb’s highest honor is to breezily insert itself into an otherwise mundane sentence.

An adverb’s highest honor is to insert itself, breezily, into an otherwise mundane sentence.

What if we could do without adverbs altogether? The world would be a better place.

Inserted into an otherwise mundane sentence, the adverb felt mighty proud.

The adverb brightened the terminus of the otherwise mundane sentence.

It worked behind the scenes to buttress the verb’s presentation and eliminate the need for itself. This is an adverb’s highest honor.

. . .
The split infinitive is common in written (usually journalistic) english, not so common in spoken english. This is a clue to the limited value of adverbial insertion.

Here is a useful guide: don’t bother splitting an infinitive. But if you do, try to limit yourself to short adverbs (boldly, quickly, etc.). At all costs, in all situations, avoid the polysyllabic adverbs (especially increasingly).

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Proved / proven

Not all behavior descends to Nixon’s level, particularly when so little of it is proved. – NYT (comments)

‘Proved‘ or ‘proven‘? Which one? Does it matter?

I think the NGRAM shows that ‘proved wrong’ is proven right. Who knew? But ‘proven’, after a slow start, has caught up to ‘proved’.

Keylor Navas has proved he deserves to be Real Madrid’s first-choice goalkeeper. – FourFourTwo

They narrowed down their findings to 33 foods proven to ease rheumatoid arthritis symptoms and slow down the progression of the disease. – Medical News Today

In science reporting, both forms figure equally. ‘Have proved’ is commonplace and efficient:

It was Charles Darwin who originally suggested that birds use their wings not only to fly but to communicate as well. Now, approximately 150 years later, scientists have proved him right, and in the process explained why pigeons make such a racket taking off. – Telegraph

In certain constructs, ‘is proven’ seems more refined:

Woodward is convinced it is proven, replicated and will scale to fast interstellar travel. – Next Big Future

He is talking about mach effect propulsion.

Proved or proven? It really doesn’t matter. Write it, then read it aloud and go with whichever is pleasing to the ear.

Goodall discusses what it’s like to be proven correct all these years later, as well as why she thinks the argument that trophy hunting is a valuable way to fund conservation is ‘rubbish’. – Mongabay

In the following radio interview, with Jane Goodall, the announcer has chosen ‘proven’ at the 2:20 mark. Jane herself uses ‘‘proved’‘ at 7:10:





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Perfect

We won’t bother with the adjectival form of perfect, it is everywhere. Let’s jump right to the verb.

UC Berkeley will conduct research to perfect a microbial factory for the compound artemisinin, currently the most effective treatment for malaria. – UC Berkeley News

Per-fect’. (v) To improve or refine.

Brendan Gleeson has told RTÉ Entertainment that several takes were needed to perfect scenes in Paddington 2, and admits it was challenging trying to “keep the energy up” during filming. – RTE

It seems that the verb is almost always in its infinitive form: ‘to perfect‘ something or other. Perhaps it appears otherwise, but we stopped looking.

Zhang, 25, has been working to perfect her English for several years and now speaks the language with little difficulty. – China Daily

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NGRAMs

Wikipedia defines n-gram like this:

In the fields of computational linguistics and probability, an n-gram is a contiguous sequence of n items from a given sample of text or speech. When the items are words, n-grams may also be called shingles.

An n-gram shows how often a word or phrase appears (e.g., in books, or in newspapers) over time. Google describes their NGRAM program as follows:

When you enter phrases into the Google Books Ngram Viewer, it displays a graph showing how [often] those phrases have occurred in a corpus of books (e.g., “British English”, “English Fiction”, “French”) over the selected years.

That’s where we get our data.

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Combat

Combat, the noun, has the stress on the first syllable.

Com’bat. (n)
First, military training and exposure to combat does not create the wacko battle-scarred soldier so often depicted by Hollywood, nor does it translate into criminal behavior. – Albuquerque Journal

Combat, the verb, has stress on . . . either syllable. It is tempting to get all purist here and insist on stressing the second syllable in the verb, but both forms have been widely adopted.

Com’bat. (v)
Com-bat’. (v)
A beefed-up corporate law enforcement unit, a new anti-fraud agency and more efficient criminal cases are among a suite of measures to be introduced to combat white-collar crime. –Irish Examiner

For combat, the verb, the stress distinction may be heading for extinction.

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Sentence stuffing

Why do some journalists feel compelled to stuff their entire thesis into a single sentence?

The time to advocate against zoning laws in Houston that left the city more prone to flooding during Hurricane Harvey is now. – The Guardian

I don’t know about you, but by the time I reached the end of the sentence, I had forgotten what the subject of ‘is’ was (it was ‘The time’. The time is now). Why can’t the authors be a little bit nicer to me and my fading short-term memory? After all, they do want me to understand their thesis.

Is this what they were trying to say?

Zoning laws in Houston left the city more prone to flooding during Hurricane Harvey. It is time to advocate against these laws.

Isn’t that better? Freed of the onerous single-sentence requirement, the authors might even have penned this:

It’s time we advocate against the existing ineffective zoning laws in Houston. They left the city open to intense flooding from Hurricane Harvey.

Or this:

Lax zoning laws in Houston left the city open to intense flooding from Hurricane Harvey. Down with those laws. They gotta go.

OK, maybe not that one, not for an impartial journalist. But wait, the original quote comes from an opinion piece. Coming down on one side of an issue: that is expected. And look at that final sentence. Three words. Very often, the shortest sentence is the most effective.

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Increasingly

Don’t use this word.

Adverbs can be suspect in the best of circumstances. Use them sparingly Be frugal in their usage. One adverb in particular, ‘increasingly‘, gives the writer up as lazy. But for some reason, ‘increasingly’ crept into the lexicon two or three decades ago, used by newspaper reporters as an easy way to reference a trend, even if the trend had just developed over the past few hours instead of, say, months or years.

Most of the aides who had been wandering around the convention center had found refuge backstage, away from the crowds staring at big screens hoping for a victory. “The path kept narrowing and narrowing and narrowing until there wasn’t one,” Parkhomenko recalled. “The mood behind the stage became increasingly grim.” – The Hill

The following trend ‘increased’ over years, until it was ‘resounding’.

Increasingly, leading cities are hiring “data people.” Whether with the title chief data officer, chief innovation officer, performance stat program director, or data scientist, these individuals are looking at government in a new way and using data to increase efficiency. Are these hires worth the investment? Resoundingly, the answer is yes. – GovTech

But why is gradualism so revered by the writer? It is not how the world works. And it might stand in the way of clarity: does she mean that each city is hiring more ‘data people’? Or that more cities are doing the hiring?

  • Increasingly, leading cities are hiring “data people.”
  • Leading cities are hiring more “data people” than ever before.
  • Leading cities are hiring “data people” in record numbers.
  • More leading cities are hiring “data people”.

Perhaps ‘data people’ should be in the lead.

  • Increasingly, leading cities are hiring “data people.”
  • “Data people” are in demand in leading cities.

You have so many options. Don’t use ‘increasingly’, ever. And for sure don’t use it in a song.

Long blends of days
Stream into nights
Consciousness barely coping
The land going by seems level
But really the tracks are
Increasingly sloping.
– ‘Slice of Time’ by David Crosby

Just don’t.

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Defuse / diffuse

This is just wrong.

Renault were said to be furious with that retort and Red Bull motorsports consultant Dr Helmut Marko stepped in to try to diffuse the situation. – beIN Sports

Dif-fuse’. (v) Spread over a wide area.

So is this.

Afterwards, the team notified Gryphons athletic director Kristin Maile, who would likely be the one to diffuse any backlash from the greater community. – The Phoenix

The following is right.

Anyone who’s ever had to defuse a tense work meeting or even a stressful Thanksgiving dinner knows that sometimes thoughtful de-escalation is the best (and often only) way to get what you want. – Lifehacker

De-fuse’. (v) Remove fuse (reduce danger).

This is also right.

Studies have shown that carbon monoxide gas can diffuse through eggshells. – Environmental Research Web

This is a royal mess.

‘They don’t want to talk about his record. They don’t want to talk about his inexperience. They want to diffuse this just like they diffuse President Trump’s agenda about bringing up the Russian deal.’ – Real Clear Politics

We’re not commenting on the politics, only on the use of ‘diffuse’.

  • They want to diffuse this just like they diffuse President Trump’s agenda about bringing up the Russian deal.
  • They want to spread this around just like they publicize President Trump’s agenda about bringing up the Russian deal.
  • They want to disseminate this just like they broadcast President Trump’s agenda about bringing up the Russian deal.

I am not sure what he is trying to say. ‘Diffuse‘ seems to be the least effective way to describe the need to get the word out. We have many alternatives: ‘broadcast’, ‘circulate’, ‘disperse’, ‘disseminate’, ‘publicize’, ‘spread this around’.

Sorry for all the red ink, it is what it is. What is the real point here? Just that ‘diffuse‘ is tricky, as a verb. Its meaning is nice and clear when used to describe the movement of food coloring through water, or gases through a membrane. Everything gets murky when ‘diffuse‘, the verb, enters the social realm, or politics.

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Initial-stress derivation

absent · abstract · accent · access · addict · address · affect · affix · alloy · ally · annex · assay · attribute · augment · belay · bombard · combat · combine · commune · compact · complex · compost · compound · compress · concert · conduct · confect · confine(s) · conflict · conscript · conserve · consist · console · consort · construct · consult · content · contest · contract · contrast · converse · convert · convict · costume · decrease · default · defect · desert · detail · dictate · digest · discard · discharge · discount · discourse · dismount · embed · envelope · escort · essay · excise · exploit · export · extract · ferment · finance · foretaste · foretoken · forward · frequent · gallant · impact · implant · impound · import · impress · imprint · incense · incline · increase · indent · inlay · insert · insult · intercept · interchange · intercross · interdict · interlink · interlock · intern · interplay · interspace · interweave · intrigue · invert · invite · involute · mandate · mentor · mismatch · misprint · object · offset · overcount · overlap · overlay · overlook · override · overrun · overturn · perfect · perfume · permit · pervert · prefix · present · proceed(s) · process · produce · progress · project · protest · purport · rebel · recall · recap · recess · recoil · record · re-count · redirect · redo · redress · refill · refund · refuse · regress · rehash · reject · relapse · relay · remake · repeat · reprint · research · reserve · reset · retake · retard · retract · retread · rewrite · segment · subject · survey · suspect · torment · transfer · transform · transplant · transect · transport · transpose · traverse · undercount · underlay · underline · underscore · update · upgrade · uplift · upset
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To not split the infinitive

An editor at Britannica pointed out an artful use of ‘not’ when splitting an infinitive:

Be aware that putting “not” or another adverb between “to” and its verb adds some emphasis to that adverb. For example, in the sentence “They decided not to stay another night” the phrase “they decided” is the most important information, but the sentence “They decided to not stay another night” tells us that maybe they decided to stay another night before, but now it is important that they will not stay.

An excellent use of ‘not’, this is. Often, however, there are more expressive, positive alternatives to a negative splitting of the infinitive:

Jack hoped to not need another surgery.

Jack hoped to avoid another surgery.

Jack hoped to forego surgery by taking a holistic approach.

Jack hoped that proper rest and exercise would make additional surgery unnecessary.

It is best to pair ‘hope’ with some sort of positive action, not ‘not’. After all, Jack had plenty of work to do on the farm. He had no time for negativity.

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Overlook

The verb ‘overlook‘ has nothing to do with the noun ‘overlook‘.

Over-look’. (v) Fail to notice.

Even though we were the first customers at 6:30 on a Saturday night, we were basically overlooked or forgotten. – Wisconsin State Journal

Anonymity can be sad, so sad. Meanwhile, the accepted definition for the noun may seem grandiose.

Over’look. (n) A commanding position or view.

Tennessee Tourism officials have installed viewfinders at three scenic spots, including one here in the Tri-Cities region, to help colorblind people see the fall foliage for the first time. The viewfinders were debuted on Wednesday, including one at the westbound Interstate 26 overlook near Erwin. – WJHL

Of course the two forms can be artfully combined.

Overlook at Mile High is overlooked no more. For one thing, the 476-unit Overlook at Mile High is the largest apartment community in the area west of downtown Denver. – Colorado Real Estate Journal

Maybe this is what we should expect from a real estate journal.