A decision entirely

« previous post | next post »

Urgent bipartite action alert for The Economist: First, note that my copy of the July 18 issue did not arrive on my doormat as it should have done on Saturday morning, so I did not have my favorite magazine to read over the weekend; please investigate. And second, the guerilla actions of the person on your staff who enforces the no-split-infinitives rule (you know perfectly well who it is) have gone too far and are making you a laughing stock. Look at this sentence, from an article about Iran (page 21; thanks to Robert Ayers for pointing it out; the underlining is mine):

Nor do such hardliners believe compliance will offer much of a safeguard: Muammar Qaddafi's decision entirely to dismantle Libya's nuclear programme did not stop Western countries from helping his foes to overthrow and kill him.

Qaddafi's decision entirely to dismantle? When you mean a decision to entirely dismantle? Give me a break. This is ridiculous. Nobody imagines that *Qaddafi's decision entirely to dismantle Libya's nuclear programme is more natural or elegant English than Qaddafi's decision to entirely dismantle Libya's nuclear programme. Except the lone madwoman to whom you give carte blanche to shift adverbs at will in other people's articles to comply with a fictive rule that pontificating idiots dreamed up in the 1800s without justification.

Sort these two things out, will you? Don't make me get irritable.



Comments are closed.