The Infinitives
An essay by Prof. Dr. Maarten Maartensz, who is a member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences.
I am not not concerned about whether infinitives are a problem.
They are, especially as a tool for working through the mystery of a word called “morphine”: they are not. What I am concerned about is whether the problem is worth pursuing, or whether the only way to resolve it is to stop using those words in their current sense.
I’m not alone on this. More than a few of my friends believe that infinitives are used to solve a problem. From a sports column for the New York Times:
In sports, infinitives are a way of overwhelming players, even in the midst of an extremely physical game. This is not a criticism. In sports, players of all levels jump out of their boxes, sniff the air, and can take a whole lot of blows. The problem is, the number of players who can take it, and have the will to do it, is very small. So, the word is used as a way of making a problem go away.
It’s like the old joke that the only way to do something is to give it away. For hustlers, it is a way of making a problem go away that they know will help them.
