Comment on [Satire] Graffiti vandal splits infinitive in latest anti-semantic attack

AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

The idea that splitting infinitives is wrong comes from an 18th-century fad of treating English grammar as if it were Latin, to demonstrate that one had been educated in Latin and wasn’t just a common peasant. English is a Germanic language and its infinitives are made to be splittable where it helps expression. If you avoid doing so, your sentences will have a noticeable formal stiffness to them, which may ease your acceptance among the 18th-century gentry, though these days will just look awkward and archaic.

In any case, it has little to do with semantics. Actual anti-semantic graffiti would probably be more like Dadaist tone poems or William S. Burroughs’ cut-up technique. Or, these days, AI slop.

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