The Myth of the Split Verb
In our last post, we considered the order of verbs and the adverbs used to modify them. And we considered an easy and reliable way of calculating the colloquial quotient of the order of verbs and adverbs.
Here, we consider something closely related — the myth of the split verb.
You probably learned this rule long ago: don’t split an infinitive. And a fine rule it is, so long as you don’t adhere to it too strongly*.
For some reason, lots of lawyers have interpreted that rule to mean this: never split a verb. But there is no such rule, and adhering to it is not such a good thing. (In fact, it’s danged-near impossible to adhere to this nonexistent rule.)
Consider this excerpt from a post written by an IP attorney [emphasis added]:
Two cases currently are pending that may provide greater clarity as to whether these programs run afoul of trademark law. First, Rescuecomm Corp. v. Google, Inc. is currently on appeal in the Second Circuit.
From the first sentence, it seems the author believes that verbs shouldn’t be split, and that’s why she writes currently are pending rather than the more idiomatic are currently pending.
Consider the next sentence from the same article:
To date, district courts within the Second Circuit have uniformly rejected trademark infringement claims based on keyword advertising, finding that the use of trademarks in such advertising does not constitute “use in commerce” as required by the Lanham Act.
Now, she could have written uniformly have rejected rather than have uniformly rejected (so as not to split have rejected), but how can she rewrite does not constitute without splitting the verb?
She can’t! Nor should she try.
Better it is to think of your readers than to try to stick (sometimes) to some mythical rule.
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*Heed the advice of Will Strunk on this, and other matters, in The Elements of Style. Sometimes it’s better to break a rule than follow it.
