I'm a junior linguist and former English major who likes to rebel, that's what inspired me to write this. Not much value is placed on traditional Latin grammars these days, and allotta people now don't even know what a split infinitive is--but if I'd written this in the 19th c. I prolly woulda been arrested! Anyway, I hope you like it better than the last group I submitted it to ("not enough mass appeal" they said...HA!)
TO GLEEFULLY SPLIT AN INFINITIVE
In order to fully comprehend what we are doing here,
We first must be prepared
To mercilessly reject all that we think we know;
To not blindly follow teachers and grammars,
Annals who hold no answers.
To desperately ask is to gradually receive;
To earnestly seek
What's to ultimately be found.
And once we indulge the freedom to often
And accordingly speak as ourselves--
To onward push,
Not to hitherto advance,
To boldly go, you know where,
Or "to him advise" as Brut might say--
The moment we begin to suddenly recognize
What we ought to intuitively see,
Then we'll be able to whereby go and to likewise do;
To proudly and decidedly affirm
Not 'to be' or 'not to be' or even 'to be not,'
But 'to not be' it is, or 'not to not be,' indeed.
Then and then only, the ingrained ability
To unitedly upright stand in the face
Of the arcane, rote-learned language will thoroughly awaken in us;
We will know that now is the time to just let it all out--
To finally, without a doubt, and at the top of our lungs
Shout that we are the ones sent to righteously undo
All that's been done.
And to henceforth know through time and space,
The long and short of it, thick and thin, tit for tat,
The pleasure that accompanies knowing full well how to--
Brutally, brazenly, ruthlessly, shamelessly,
Full-heartedly, forcefully, coarsely, remorselessly,
Craftily, tactfully, artfully, dramatically,
Unabashedly, unequivocally, undeniably,
And as many other adverbials and adverbs
As will fit in your arsenal,
And will blow them away with a curse and a smirk,
With a "in-your-face," and a "kiss-my-ass,"
"Rulers be damned, Bishop Lowth too,"
Truly, greatly, deeply,
"This one is for history"--
Split the infinitive.
02 Dec 2014, 4:04 pm
