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".
Read more about this topic: Split Infinitive
Famous quotes containing the words famous and/or split:
““Why visit the playhouse to see the famous Parisian models, ... when one can see the French damsels, Norma and Diana? Their names have been known on both continents, because everything goes as it will, and those that cannot be satisfied with these must surely be of a queer nature.””
—For the City of New Orleans, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious, periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o’erdoing Termagant. It out-Herods Herod. Pray you avoid it.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)