[Taxacom] Split infinitives in scientific writing

[Ashley Nicholas]

Hi everyone,

Split infinitives are a constant sources of problems to my students, especially those whose mother tongue is not English. And I must confess I also slip up now and again.

I am busy compiling a list of commonly use split infinitives found in scientific/taxonomic writing (that need to be corrected) as a hand-out for my students. I would be most grateful to those of you that have examples to please send these to me (I will acknowledge you in the student hand-out). Maybe do this privately so I don't clog up this Listserver with (what is in comparison to other topics) a minor thread.

A split infinitive I come across frequently in student and postgrad work is "to scientifically test" which should be "to test scientifically". Albeit, Word is now quite good at picking these up. Being a "Star Trek" Fan, the most well know split infinitive is of course "To boldly go where no one has gone before". Which should be "To go boldly where no one has gone before" - but the correct version just doesn't have the same emotional impact.

How seriously do editors and reviewers take mistakes like this?

Regards, in haste.
Ashley

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Ashley Nicholas (PhD)
Associate Professor & Curator Ward Herbarium
Academic Leader Biodiversity & Evolutionary Biology Cluster
School of Life Science,  Westville Campus
University of KwaZulu-Natal,
Private Bag X54001,
Durban, 4000, South Africa
Tel.:+27-31-260 7719 Fax.: +27-31-260 2029
http://lifesciences.ukzn.ac.za/Staff/Biodiversity/biodiv_evo_staff/Durban/nicholasa.aspx
nicholasa at ukzn.ac.za<mailto:nicholasa at ukzn.ac.za>
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Empirical scientists do not deal with the truth, we deal with hypotheses. At their best these hypotheses are insightful and predictive, however, nonetheless experience has shown that they are often only a poor approximation of reality and therefore the truth.
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