ILL, the verb

[Wilson Gray]

On Sun, Jan 27, 2013 at 7:34 AM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> But I expect the unexpected.
>
> The number of "obvious" innovations that seemingly take decades to evolve
> or catch on is, well, unexpected.

Youneverknow.

After all, "obvious" in the mind of the beholder, as is "obscure." I
didn't expect that "to not V" could even occur - there was no
prescriptive rule against it, AFAIK, for the simple reason that such a
string was non-ocurrent - let alone be running neck-and-neck with "not
to V." Of course, the requisite rule could be understood as following
clearly from the general proscription against splitting an infinitive.

Well, I still haven't heard anything like,

"My original intent had been to boldly go where no other man had gone
before, but I was told to not."

But it's probably only a matter of time.

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

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