Forum maintenance 20 Jan 09

[Michael Rowley]

Mike:

But then, who's to say the Romans got it right?

Burchfield mentioned in Fowler's that in the late eighteenth century it was held that the split infinitive was impossible in Latin, therefore incorrect in English, and the time when the split infinitive was in vogue was the late eighteenth century: and when was Washington inaugurated? I think in 1789!