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Posted by Not an English professor.. on April 30, 2005 at 23:47:22
In Reply to: I mostly agree with you....however, when you posted by ntr on April 30, 2005 at 16:12:24:
English in large part came from German. In the late 1700s and early 1800s the people who started making rules about how English should be done tried to impose Latin rules on it. A split infinitive is perfectly natural in German as are dangling participles. And we must not forget that living languages are living. Their grammars and lexicons change over time. Anyway, the rules about what is and what isn't okay are being relaxed by those at the top. (Aren't you glad you didn't spend $350 to sit through the Structure of Grammar 304 with me? Boring). My rule, I guess, is if it is a structure I hear repeatedly by educated Anglo-American speakers, I let it stay.
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