Splitting Infinitives
Chief Justice Roberts hates to split
infinitives, and boldly goes
towards the future without wit,
his path as prim as that prim rose
that once Polonius boldly took,
advising Hamlet not to dally.
The Constitution almost shook
when he refused to shilly-shally,
and tried to wander in a way
that was unfaithful to the text
the oath of office. The next day
the problem was resolved, and now,
Queen’s English and our own unregal
language must agree that splitting
of infinitives is legal,
although pedantically unfitting,
since we’ve a President who swore
appropriately, and a Justice
who like Polonius is a bore
and clearly just as dry as dust is.
Inspired by Stephen Pinker’s Op-Ed article in the NYT, January 22,2009, appropriately titled “Oaf of Office, ” commenting on the fiasco created by Chief Justice Roberts when administering the oath of office to President Obama according togrammatical rules that conflict with the original text of the oath:
In 1969, Neil Armstrong appeared to have omitted an indefinite article as he stepped onto the moon and left earthlings puzzled over the difference between “man” and “mankind.” In 1980, Jimmy Carter, accepting his party’s nomination, paid homage to a former vice president he called Hubert Horatio Hornblower. A year later, Diana Spencer reversed the first two names of her betrothed in her wedding vows, and thus, as Prince Charles Philip supposedly later joked, actually married his father. On Tuesday, Chief Justice John Roberts joined the Flubber Hall of Fame when he administered the presidential oath of office apparently without notes. Instead of having Barack Obama “solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, ” Chief Justice Roberts had him “solemnly swear that I will execute the office of president to the United States faithfully.” When Mr. Obama paused after “execute, ” the chief justice prompted him to continue with “faithfully the office of president of the United States.” (To ensure that the president was properly sworn in, the chief justice re-administered the oath Wednesday evening.)
How could a famous stickler for grammar have bungled that 35-word passage, among the best-known words in the Constitution? Conspiracy theorists and connoisseurs of Freudian slips have surmised that it was unconscious retaliation for Senator Obama’s vote against the chief justice’s confirmation in 2005. But a simpler explanation is that the wayward adverb in the passage is blowback from Chief Justice Roberts’s habit of grammatical niggling. Language pedants hew to an oral tradition of shibboleths that have no basis in logic or style, that have been defied by great writers for centuries, and that have been disavowed by every thoughtful usage manual. Nonetheless, they refuse to go away, perpetuated by the Gotcha! Gang and meekly obeyed by insecure writers. Among these fetishes is the prohibition against “split verbs, ” in which an adverb comes between an infinitive marker like “to, ” or an auxiliary like “will, ” and the main verb of the sentence. According to this superstition, Captain Kirk made a grammatical error when he declared that the five-year mission of the starship Enterprise was “to boldly go where no man has gone before”; it should have been “to go boldly.” Likewise, Dolly Parton should not have declared that “I will always love you” but “I always will love you” or “I will love you always.”
Any speaker who has not been brainwashed by the split-verb myth can sense that these corrections go against the rhythm and logic of English phrasing. The myth originated centuries ago in a thick-witted analogy to Latin, in which it is impossible to split an infinitive because it consists of a single word, like dicere, “to say.” But in English, infinitives like “to go” and future-tense forms like “will go” are two words, not one, and there is not the slightest reason to interdict adverbs from the position between them.
Though the ungrammaticality of split verbs is an urban legend, it found its way into The Texas Law Review Manual on Style, which is the arbiter of usage for many law review journals. James Lindgren, a critic of the manual, has found that many lawyers have “internalized the bogus rule so that they actually believe that a split verb should be avoided, ” adding, “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers has succeeded so well that many can no longer distinguish alien speech from native speech.” In his legal opinions, Chief Justice Roberts has altered quotations to conform to his notions of grammaticality, as when he excised the “ain’t” from Bob Dylan’s line “When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.” On Tuesday his inner copy editor overrode any instincts toward strict constructionism and unilaterally amended the Constitution by moving the adverb “faithfully” away from the verb. President Obama, whose attention to language is obvious in his speeches and writings, smiled at the chief justice’s hypercorrection, then gamely repeated it. Let’s hope that during the next four years he will always challenge dogma and boldly lead the nation in new directions.
1/22/09
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Jim Jim
jim jim
your ever so prim
sitting there in your chair
making fun as you do
wondering what next to do
jim jim
you're a fun friend
thank you for being there
evn thow your just sitting there
jim jim
your ever so prim
just sitting there inont know
your chair
whats next you ask to do
oh i dont know
lets have a brew
maybe then you can tell me all
whats going on
oh lets have a ball
jim jim
your fun to know
you make me laugh
did you know
jim jim your ever so prim.
for my friend jim mcElderry...(x-factor winners dad) ...the end
poem by Christina McIntosh
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Polonius: And I do think, or else this brain of mine hunts not the trail of policy so sure as it hath used to do, that I have found the very cause of Hamlet's lunacy.
line from Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2 by William Shakespeare (1599)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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The Wooing o' t
He was a bachelor, gallant and gay
She was a spinster prim -
Pretty and prim, with a wonderful way
Which had captivated him.
Oh! well knew she what he wished to say,
So - never frigid nor freezy -
Molly Maginnis managed that day
To make his saying o' 't easy.
'Bob, I shall get you a wife,' said she,
'Find some nice, dear girl for you;
Bob! please tell me the sort she must be,
Shall her eyes be brown or blue?
'Must she be of the 'plump and the pleasing' sort?
Will the 'slender and willowy' do?'
Here Robert the Bachelor, cutting her short,
Said: 'She must be just like you!
'And to me, sweetheart, 'tis distinctly clear,
There is none in the world like you.'
This fell in the fall of the finished year,
They are married now in the New.
poem by Harry 'Breaker' Harbord Morant
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Will Future Torture Or Enrapture?
Future is unknown
Nothing about it is shown
And so future we do not own
So confusion has grown
Now we may plan
But, God may ban
We may think we can
But God is superior to man
We can never predict
As fate will contradict
Through a different verdict
But, God, we cannot indict
Future is a guarded secret
Which may give a regret
Or success we may get
None can know it, I bet
For future if we carefully save
We will not be poverty's slave
We will not maroon in worry-wave
We can in life very boldly behave
If our plans have loopholes
We will have dolorous souls
Will be perforated our goals
Our losses, the World condoles
Plans can be for future made
With the hope of getting shade
All our duties we must not evade
Real grit must be by us displayed
Future is surely an uncertainty
It may give calamity or equanimity
Hoping has got an excellent utility
Future is safe via a sterling quality
Future will become excellent
If using of present is intelligent
Better to be in life boldly nonchalant
Calmly waiting is in itself a fine talent
As a secret let future remain
Let us postpone our pain
If it becomes a gain
We will feel immensely fine
poem by Mailrangam Visvanathan Venkataraman
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Hamlet [to Polonius]: Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used, for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time. After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.
line from Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2 by William Shakespeare (1599)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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Polonius: My honourable Lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.
Hamlet: You cannot, Sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal, except my life, my life.
line from Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2 by William Shakespeare (1599)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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A Do-Over Again?
I wrote awhile back about the Michigan and Florida Democratic Do-Over,
Because they violated the Democratic Party’s rules,
Now Barack Obama is the 44th President as of January 20th was that for sure?
In the hustle and bustle amongst all the bling and jewels,
There was a snafu,
At noon, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts who hadn’t clue,
What he was about to say,
Justice Roberts managed to mumble a few pseudo-dyslexic statements,
For President-Elect Obama to repeat, with some surprise,
After all was the Chief Justice caught up in the moments?
This slice of American History;
This Chief Justice will make history for centuries after his demise.
What a glorious event,2 million people attended, without one fracas of the law,
What moments that practically the whole world watched,
Glued to their TV’s, radios, I-Pods, and Computers,
Could have not believed what they saw,
A non-white man was going be the President of the United States of America?
But back to the swearing ceremony; the Chief Justice,
-well kind of ‘screwed up’.
Rather than embarrass the Judge,
Barack played along,
That’s when I knew he was for real,
Rather than create an upheaval of trying to correct the Judge’s words,
Barack went on with the flow,
No ‘up-manship’ here,
it was pretty clear,
That Barack Obama was our president after 12: 01 pm EST,
However he was repeating the words of a man, not the constitution,
Yesterday, at a private ceremony,
Supreme Court Roberts did say the correct words,
In which “President Obama” was sworn in a second time,
On consecutive dates in this institution.
(1-22-09)
poem by Joe Rosochacki
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Polonius: What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet: Words, words, words.
line from Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2 by William Shakespeare (1599)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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Will You Be There - Michael Jackson
Hold me
Like the River Jordan
And I will then say to Thee
You are my friend
Carry me
Like you are my brother
Love me like a mother
Will you be there?
Weary
Tell me will you hold me?
When wrong, will you scold me?
When lost will you find me?
But they told me
A man should be faithful
And walk when not able
And fight till the end
But I'm only human
Everyone's taking control of me
Seems that the world's
Got a role for me
I'm so confused
Will you show to me
You'll be there for me
And care enough to bare me?
(Hold me)
(Lay your head lowly)
(Softly then boldly)
(Carry me there)
(Lead me)
(Love me and feed me)
(Kiss me and free me)
(I will feel blessed)
(Carry)
(Carry me boldly)
(Lift me up slowly)
(Carry me there)
(Save me)
(Heal me and bathe me)
(Softly you say to me)
(I will be there)
(Lift me)
(Lift me up slowly)
(Carry me boldly)
(Show me you care)
(Hold me)
(Lay your head lowly)
(Softly then boldly)
(Carry me there)
(Need me)
(Love me and feed me)
(Kiss me and free me)
(I will feel blessed)
......
RIP, MJ
poem by Rebecca Ryan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Prim and proper white women, I like what I see.
quote by Guy Madison
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Polonius: Brevity is the soul of wit.
line from Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2 by William Shakespeare (1599)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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Polonius [aside]: Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't.
line from Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2 by William Shakespeare (1599)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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Polonius: Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.
line from Hamlet, Act I, Scene 3 by William Shakespeare (1599)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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With Faith Felt Deeply
And with a faith felt deeply,
Within me like nothing else...
I pray.
Everyday.
There is something unexplainable,
I know inside that connects.
Something there aware of me.
and what it should be,
Without my questioning to accept.
And with hope and not fear,
I boldly take forward steps.
I boldly face obstacles unafraid.
And with faith felt deeply,
I pray.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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It's now up to the full Senate to move swiftly to confirm John Roberts so he can assume his duties and responsibilities as chief justice when the Supreme Court begins its new term in a matter of weeks. We call on the Senate to confirm John Roberts without delay.
quote by Jay Alan Sekulow
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Polonius: Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgement.
line from Hamlet, Act I, Scene 3 by William Shakespeare (1599)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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I am an artist and have no right buggering about with verbs and split infinitives, which is what being a writer says to me.
quote by Ralph Steadman
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Our work is before us. It cannot be passed to future legislatures and must not be passed to future generations. May we boldly seize the moment with singular unity. And may we build a Texas of unlimited possibility.
quote by Rick Perry
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Little Ballads Of Timely Warning; II:
Little Ballads Of Timely Warning; II: On Malicious Cruelty To Harmless Creatures
The cruelty of P. L. Brown—
(He had ten toes as good as mine)
Was known to every one in town,
And, if he never harmed a noun,
He loved to make verbs shriek and whine.
The 'To be' family’s just complaints—
(Brown had ten toes as good as mine)
Made Brown cast off the last restraints:
He smashed the 'Is nots' into 'Ain’ts'
And kicked both mood and tense supine.
Infinitives were Brown’s dislike—
(Brown, as I said, had ten good toes)
And he would pinch and shake and strike
Infinitives, or, with a pike,
Prod them and then laugh at their woes.
At length this Brown more cruel grew—
(Ten toes, all good ones, then had Brown)
And to his woodshed door he drew
A young infinitive and threw
The poor, meek creature roughly down,
And while the poor thing weakly flopped,
Brown (ten good toes he had, the brute!)
Got out his chopping block and dropped
The martyr on it and then propped
His victim firmly with his boot.
He raised his axe! He brandished it!
(Ye gods of grammar, interpose!)
He brought it down full force all fit
The poor infinitive to split—
*
(Brown after that had but six toes!
Warning
Infinitives, by this we see.
Should not he split too recklessly.
poem by Ellis Parker Butler
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Polonius: Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
line from Hamlet, Act I, Scene 3 by William Shakespeare (1599)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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