The infinitive constructions _to NOT verb_ & _NOT to verb_

[Wilson Gray]

On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 6:23 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Actually, the rule against it was the rule never to split an infinitive.


Well, that rule certainly subsumes the a rule against the insertion of
_not._ But people, IME, didn't insert _not_. They, well, *we*,
inserted all kinds of other stuff and we had to exert psychic effort
in order to learn to *not* do ;-) that. These days, I it take a lot
out of me to not "correct" ;-) speakers at adjacent tables, on the
tube, etc.

I need to stop playing with that. When I came East, I was really
struck by the fact that speakers didn't "trill" R after TH. I couldn't
even imagine how that could be done. Fascinated, I taught myself how
to do that. I woke up one morning to discover that I myself no longer
trilled R after TH in unmonitored spech. I had to work to get back to
my original, old-fashioned trill pronunciation, once so common that
books on tongues like Spanish told readers to use the R that occurred
after TH in order to imitate a "rolled" R. I don't want to discover
one day that I have to *think* in order not to be saying, e.g. "to not
say."

BTW, does anyone else recall the upper-class matron in the old, B&W
film of The Importance of Being Earnest who addressed her servant as
"Prrism"?
--
-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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