To the Editor:
Clare Leonard '08.5 may indeed be the only person under the age of 50 who enjoys enforces the split-infinitives "rule," but she writes, in her letter ("Poor writing can be found just about anywhere," Feb. 25) in a long tradition of amateur philologists who bizarrely apply a syntactic constraint of Latin to English. In Latin, infinitive verbs are not formed with an auxillary (the English "to" in "to nag"), but rather with a suffix (the Latin "increpitare"). Thus, it is impossible to separate an infinitive auxiliary from a main verb in Latin, because there is no auxillary to separate. This rule in English neither seems cognizant of the history of the split infinitive nor addresses why English writers should base "good style" on the syntax of a distantly related language.
As for her indictment of "their" as a singular, third-person, gender-neutral pronoun, Leonard is ignoring real English. There is no reason, other than convention, that "their" is incorrect in the sentence "Every grammarian grabbed their hat." English uses one word, "you" for both singular and plural second-person prounouns, regardless of gender. So why can't "their" function similarly as a third person gender-neutral pronoun, something I find myself desperately needing in both speech and writing? Nowadays, "their" is widely accepted this way in speech, and I feel comfortable using it in my writing.
So, I'll expand your challenge: Got writing game? Prove it by writing and critiquing based on words' beauty and persuasiveness, not using arbitrary and linguistically ill-supported "rules."
Samuel Oliker-Friedland '09Feb. 26
