Look, one other thing to keep in mind is that a lot of the stuff you’ll read in prescriptivist screeds are matters of style. There is a lot of information that should be thought of as virtually unbreakable rules of grammar — that English word order is subject-verb-object and not object-verb-subject is not a matter of style, but rather a rule of grammar. My personal preference for saying (1) instead of (2):
(1) My favorite restaurant is located off of the highway
(2) My favorite restaurant is located off the highway
is a matter of style, not a rule of grammar. Even in situations where someone has motivation for their preference, these motivations are often flawed or based only on that person’s opinions, which might not be shared by the world at large. You probably have lots of little things like that, ways you say stuff that sounds just great to you, and you probably don’t understand why anyone would say it another way. Nevertheless, in most cases it’s probably not that your way’s any better. Don’t try to dream up reasons why it is better and why it should therefore be a rule of English grammar. Let people split their infinitives. Let them say between the three of us. Hold your tongue unless it’s a matter of more than style. Ask yourself if disobeying the grammatical “rule” you hold so dear really has a calamitous effect. If it does, go ahead and say something. If not, go put your energy toward something useful.
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January 4, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Liam Quin
It seems to me that the main purpose of “rules” of grammar is to encourage a shared understanding. A split infinitive is often (not always) a sign of a sentence that, if rewritten, may be more clearly understood by more people. The fragments “located off of the highway” and “located off the highway” mean slightly different things to me: in the second case one is suggesting that the place can be reached directly via the highway, and in the first that it possibly cannot. But in informal, spoken English, one has to take into accuont a lot more of the context.
Best,
Liam
January 23, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Gabe
Liam: I agree with you that there is a subtle difference between (1) and (2), and I think most people have that intuition. The problem is that I don’t think people think the same difference exists. To me, “off of” seems more accessible from the highway than “off”. But I think the key point is that the difference rarely has a big effect on interpretation, and that’s why I don’t think it is or should be a rule.