transladyknight:

Random people: don’t you have an english degree??? why can’t you use grammar???

Me: I do creative writing. It’s creative grammar.

Me: Also prescriptive grammar is a method the bourgeoisie uses to mark certain speech and writing as acceptable and–by extention–everything else as unacceptable. Many of the so-called rules of grammar–such as not ending a sentence with a preposition or not splitting infinitives–are completely arbitrary and serve no actual meaningful function within the language itself and were imposed by grammarians attempting to make english conform to their preconceptions of what a language should be (in this case: latin, or rather, a collection of grammar rules with attached optional vocabulary).

Split-infinitive is the classic example of a grammar rule that actually isn’t one. There’s a couple of references to late Victorian professors preferring it but it’s never been a rule and the only reason anyone ever insists on it is to do with Latin, in which it’s impossible to split them. But you can in English, because English and Latin are not the same. In fact it’s often preferable to do so. Take the most famous example:

‘To boldly go where no one has gone before…’

If we change that to ‘to go boldly’ it changes the emphasis from ‘boldly’ to ‘go’ making a less effectice sentence IMO.