One of the first things I was ever told by a hardened professional
journalist was: “Say anything you like, insult anyone, mess up your facts,
broadcast lies and slander — nobody will bat an eyelid. But split a
popping infinitive and watch the angry mail come pouring in.”
I have found this to be true. Nothing stirs people up like fine points of
grammar, pronunciation, and usage. I am not much surprised to find,
therefore, that the section of this morning’s Diary generating the most
e-mail is the bit about the subjunctive.
Here’s one of my favorites so far: “Derb—As a lawyer, I use the
subjunctive frequently to show that an ‘if …, then’ condition is a
contrary to fact condition, thereby adding subtle support to my primary
position that the if clause is not true. Since many judges split
infinitives, I doubt that they actually pick up on the point. Most probably
think that I got the number of my verb wrong.”