The infinitive constructions _to NOT verb_ & _NOT to verb_

[Jonathan Lighter]

Actually, the rule against it was the rule never to split an infinitive.

JL

On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 4:49 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      The infinitive constructions _to NOT verb_ & _NOT to verb_
>
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>
> On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 11:15 AM,  <ronbutters at aol.com> wrote:
> > [E]arlier usage manuals do not mention this use of [...].
>
> Thanks, Ron! That's the the syntactic structure that I searched for
> but couldn't find, a few years back, WRT the infinitive construction,
>
> "to _not_ V"
>
> as in,
>
> "He decided _to not come_."
>
> IME, this particular structure has always seemed passing strange. It
> suddenly appeared, full-blown, out of nowhere. I'd never seen it noted
> as "incorrect," or in any other way, in any manual or by any teacher,
> back in the day when I was learning "proper" English. There was no
> need to, for it was the case that this structure simply didn't !
>
> Then, BAM!!! I heard it and saw it everywhere. Very likely, for the
> greater proportion of today's speakers - and even yesterday's, since a
> lot of speakers of my own, AARP age, use this new construction without
> blinking - it's the once-immutable  structure,
>
> "He decided _not to come_"
>
> that feels vaguely, annoyingly, in some sense, all fucked up.
>
> Youneverknow.
>
> --
> -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
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> -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
>
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