Graffiti vandal splits infinitive in latest anti-semantic attack
Graffiti Vandal Splits Infinitive in Latest Anti-Semantic Attack — The Shovel
The grammatically confronting phrase was spray-painted by a vandal on the front of a local bookshop, of all places, leaving local syntax purists feeling threatened and afraid.
The idea that splitting infinitives is wrong comes from an 18th-century fad of treating English grammar as if it were Latin, to demonstrate that one had been educated in Latin and wasn’t just a common peasant. English is a Germanic language and its infinitives are made to be splittable where it helps expression. If you avoid doing so, your sentences will have a noticeable formal stiffness to them, which may ease your acceptance among the 18th-century gentry, though these days will just look awkward and archaic.
In any case, it has little to do with semantics. Actual anti-semantic graffiti would probably be more like Dadaist tone poems or William S. Burroughs’ cut-up technique. Or, these days, AI slop.
It sounds like The Shovel is participating in anti-semantic attacks and should be reported to the appropriate authorities (Weird Al, maybe?).