Famous Split Infinitives
The opening sequence of Star Trek contains the phrase to boldly go where no man has gone before. This has varied in subsequent Star Trek works but the split infinitive remains in all of them.
The Oath of office of the President of the United States includes the text "to faithfully execute". In the 2009 inaugaration of Barack Obama, Chief Justice Roberts made a series of errors in adminstering Obama's oath of office. Steven Pinker traced some of these errors to the "shibboleth" against "split verbs", particularly the "myth" that it is "impossible to split an infinitive".
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Famous quotes containing the words famous and/or split:
“That a famous library has been cursed by a woman is a matter of complete indifference to a famous library. Venerable and calm, with all its treasures safe locked within its breast, it sleeps complacently and will, so far as I am concerned, so sleep forever. Never will I wake these echoes, never will I ask for that hospitality again ...”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“Some people ... can’t see the country for the money in their pockets. They think their state is the country, or the way they live is the country. And they’re willing to split the country because of it.”
—Dan Totheroh (1895–1976)