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Show The Split Infinitive Justified. In his article on " 'To and the Infinitive," In-finitive," In Harper's Magazine. Prof. Lounsbury sums up his argument decidedly de-cidedly in favor of this much discussed "corruption": "If men come seriously to belicvo that ambiguity can be' lessened or emphasis em-phasis increased by changing tho order of words in any given phrase," he says, "we may bo sure that In time the habit of so doing, will be adopted whenever It is deemed desirable. It Is clear that most of thore who now refrain re-frain from the practice under discussion discus-sion no longer do so Instinctively, as was once the case, but rather under compulsion. They refrain, not becauso they feel that It is unnatural or unidlo-matlc, unidlo-matlc, but becauso they have been told that It Is improper. Artltlclal bulwarks of tills sort will never hold back long a general movement of speech. If the present attitude of men toward this particular usage continues and of this there seems every likelihood they can be relied upon to brush aside the objections of purists as summarily and aa effectively as they have done in the ca.se of the passive form 'is being.' If they proceed so to do, no ono need feel the slightest anxiety as to the injurious consequences which will befall tho English tongue. It is not by tigencles of this nature that the real corruption of speech la brought about Were such tho case, our language would have been already ruined any number of times and at any number of periods. |