Obsolete Grammar Rules

[Maquarrie]

According to a professor of mine, there are two* rules of grammar that existed in the 1800's that are no longer in effect and can be ignored in regular use, even professional environments.

Rule # 1: One should not end a sentence in a preposition.
The reason for this rule was becuase it could not be done in Latin, which was, and still is in certain circles, the language of scholars. Therefore, to be scholarly, one needed to observe grammatical rules of Latin. Latin, however, is now considerably dead, with the exception of said circles, and therefor this archaic rule can be bent and broken.

Rule # 2: Infinitive verbs cannot be split.
This rule was tricky to begin with. For those who do not know, an infinitive verb is "to be" or "to run" etc. The most famous split infinitive is "to boldly go" from Star Trek. Traditional grammar says that boldly would have to be placed before or after the total verb, but modern rules find this obsolete for roughly the same reasons as stated above.

I thought you may find this interesting. mrgreen



*There are probably more than two, but those were the ones she could think of at the spur of the moment.  

[Ame Yuki Kaze]

So that means it's alright for me to say, "Whom am I speaking to?" after all?  

[Litia_Echo]

That's pretty cool. I learned something new today! haha...  

[Zealot of Insanity]

I'm confused. xp  

[SoneaCresent]

Hm, interesting rule. I think I'd been breaking those since started writing.  

[Poet`s Playground]

I always break the preposition rule lol . It sounds nicer when you follow it, though, but sometimes I'm just not creative enough to find a way to do so.