New Orts #63

March 30 MMXXV

There is a pedant on your staff who spends far too much of his time searching for split infinitives. Every good literary craftsman uses a split infinitive if he thinks the sense demands it. I call for this man's instant dismissal; it matters not whether he decides to quickly go or to go quickly or quickly to go. Go he must, and at once.
— George Bernard Shaw, to the Times of London

The English-speaking world may be divided into (1) those who neither know nor care what a split infinitive is; (2) those who do not know, but care very much; (3) those who know and condemn; (4) those who know and distinguish. Those who neither know nor care are the vast majority, and are a happy folk, to be envied by most of the minority classes.
— H. W. Fowler, Modern English Usage (1926)

Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them.
— Flannery O'Connor, novelist (and MFA in Creative Writing, University of Iowa)

I watch a lot of baseball on the radio.
— former U.S. President Gerald Ford, 1978