"In event of moon disaster" and other speeches our presidents never gave

[Wilson Gray]

Dennis Baron wrote:

"... he resolved _always to have_ an extra speech handy ..."

Blessings upon him and his seed unto ages of of ages! He passed up a
chance to split an infinitive! He could have written:

"....*he resolved _to always have_ an extra speech handy ..."


I spend my entire life struggling to discover ways to avoid splitting
an infinitive and now you-all come talking about that it doesn't make
any difference and that it never really had made any difference, until
what is casually known as a "dead white guy" said so. Sigh!

-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain





On Sat, Apr 25, 2009 at 1:19 AM, Dennis Baron <debaron at illinois.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Dennis Baron <debaron at ILLINOIS.EDU>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â "In event of moon disaster" and other speeches our presidents
> Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â  Â never gave
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> There's a new post on the Web of Language:
>
> "In event of moon disaster" and other speeches our presidents never gave
>
> When something=92s in the offing and politicians have to give a speech =20=
>
> about it, they may prepare for different outcomes by having a positive =20=
>
> speech in one pocket and a negative speech in the other, just in case.
>
> Two days before the first astronauts walked on the moon, H. R. =20
> =93Watergate Bob=94 Haldeman directed Nixon speechwriter William Safire =
> to =20
> come up with something for the president to say to the astronauts=92 =20
> widows. Just in case.
>
> ...
>
> Other presidents had alternative speeches that they didn't give. Read =20=
>
> about them in the rest of this post on the Web of Language:
>
> http://illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage
>
>
> ____________________
> Dennis Baron
> Professor of English and Linguistics
> Department of English
> University of Illinois
> 608 S. Wright St.
> Urbana, IL 61801
>
> office: 217-244-0568
> fax: 217-333-4321
>
> http://illinois.edu/goto/debaron
>
> read the Web of Language:
> http://illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org