Does anybody see anything wrong with the application of split infinitives on sentence below?
“Being a Chinese Language Localizer and the supply chain in CCJK partnership we have [color=red]internally[/color] built a quality-assured project and management skills with years of experiences on localizing business-critical products.”
Somebody just told me that Split infinitive is wrong and should not be applied in writings. I just give him a no-no arguing that this is just another British vs American argument. I personally have no grudge using or not using split infinitive. I just spread it in balance across the writing.
Correct if I’m wrong, but I can’t see any infinitives in that sentence, never mind a split one.
I always thought that split infinitives where invented by grammar nazis who couldn’t accept that Latin was dying out, so decided that Latin grammar rules should apply to English.
These are better with a split infinitive, but sound wrong if you don’t split it:
good point matthew
I think I’ve camouflaged the infinitive into the perfect participle. Just tell me, what do you think about “have internally built” and “have built internally.”
I love to use split infinitive, reason being that I think it’s sexy…
you know the split thingy…if you unsplit them… ah I don’t know…
may be, but to tell you the truth, I’m already an underpaid overworked low wage blue collar worker here abused for website editing task. we just hired an british teacher to help us edit it. the thing is I disagree with him about the split infinitive thing… and I hate it with people tell me split infinitive is wrong… just because he’s british.
Ax, you’re wrong mate. Don’t argue with a native speaker. I’m sure this guy would not argue with you about Bahasa even if he thought he was quite fluent.
Your have a flair for languages, but that sentence is appalling. What the hell do you mean by internally anyway? Do you mean that other companies build from the outside?
well, I must admit the word “internally” here is no more than expletive. But it was originally written that way to highlight that the skills and expertise were build internally (inside our company) as opposite to outside the company.
So he complained about a split infinitive that isn’t there, but didn’t complain about ‘experiences on’ (both words are wrong) ? I think some punctuation wouldn’t hurt either.
Anton, I cut and pasted the sentence into Word with the aim of editing it but, by jesus, I didn’t know where to start. I’d suggest that you give it to your Brit to look at.
[quote]“Being a Chinese Language Localizer and the supply chain in CCJK partnership we have internally built a quality-assured project and management skills with years of experiences on localizing business-critical products.”
[/quote]
“As a Chinese-language localizer and part of the supply chain in the CCJK partnership, we have used our management skills and our years of experience in localizing business-critical products to build a quality-assured project.”
There now. Isn’t that better? That’ll be NT$20 please.
Here’s the rewrite we did last night with 6 heads:
“XXX is a Chinese localizer and a vital service provider in the the CCJK market. We have acquired impeccable project management skills from years of working knowledge and experience in the localization industry.”
There is nothing gramatically wrong with “have internally built”. As pointed out, it’s not an infinitive. Internally is an adverb and would be more comfortable placed at the end of the clause (it bonds more closely with the noun phrase than the verb). Better still, use a phrase like “in-house quality assurance” etc.
