My favorite bullshitty techwriting rule is “capitalize important words”. And by favorite, I mean…
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When I read the actual trial testimony from the Salem Witch Trials, it was pretty cool as spelling, even of proper names, was not standardized at that time. It really opened my eyes to a world where writing was really free.
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But who was your reply for? 
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So “To be or not to be” is forbidden???
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Tell that to W. S. Gilbert!
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I’m not sure if the rule would apply to starting a sentence with a verb in its infinitive form.
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Didn’t think of that. Sigh.
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Shakespeare famously spelled his own name several different ways.
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To is a preposition. Be is an infinitive.
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“Be” is a bare infinitive. “To be” is a full infinitive.
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“To be” is a prepositional phrase. “Be” is an infinitive.
The prepositional phrases are often the best translations of Latin infinitives, but they’re often also the best translations of Latin ut+subjunctive.
P.S. Similarly, will+present is often the best translation of the Latin future, but it is its own form.
P.P.S. And I think the Germanic verb system is just amazing-- I don’t speak Gullah-Geechee but it’s remarkable how it adapts the Germanic verb system to a West African tense system.
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If “to” isn’t part of the infinitive, then how can an infinitive be split?
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Well, you can use “fucking” as an infex…
Initiates controversy and quietly slinks away.
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And they all went to heaven in a little rowboat?
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Obviously, we need some Schoolhouse Rock around here:
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Not surprising, but interesting. I would have thought the number of deaths from falls would have been higher.
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It’s kind of sad how quickly “death by selfie” went from “non-existent” to “certain Darwin Award nomination” and finally ended up at “too common for a Darwin Award nomination.”
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Everyone did before Webster. It was super weird to read the testimony because Ann Putnam, Jr. would be Ann on one line and Anne on another and it was hard to tell what was what. A lot of phonetic spelling.
But it was cool how there were women Juniors in those days.
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What do all y’all think? “TRY-plex,” or “TRIP-lex”?
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