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:
“Hunger makes you restless. You dream about food—not just any food, but perfect food, the best food, magical meals, famous and awe-inspiring, the one piece of meat, the exact taste of buttery corn, tomatoes so ripe they split and sweeten the air, beans so crisp they snap between the teeth, gravy like mother’s milk singing to your bloodstream.”
—Dorothy Allison (b. 1953)
“Let my hands find such symbols, that can be
Unnoticed in the casual light of day,
Lying in wait for half a century
To split chance lives across, that had not dreamed
Such coasts had echoed, or such seabirds screamed.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)