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Forum
-> Miscellaneous
yo'ma
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Thu, Dec 01 2016, 7:26 am
Is it it's so nice to finally meet you or it's so nice to meet you finally? I was watching a commercial for esl and this woman with an accent, so she wasn't a native english speaker, said the latter. She said it a way that there was no comma in between you and finally. It seemed like she was one of the teachers though. It was just a commercial and I'm not reading into it, but living among non english speakers, it makes me forget what's right. Even though living among english speakers, it doesn't mean that they're correct either . In addition, I was never that great with grammar. TIA
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Iymnok
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Thu, Dec 01 2016, 7:30 am
The former sounds better to me.
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vicki
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Thu, Dec 01 2016, 7:32 am
They are both grammatically correct but you should put the 'finally' closer to the word that it is describing. In this case it is describing the 'meet' not the 'you' so it should be:
"It is so nice to finally meet you."
Again, neither is grammatically incorrect.
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cm
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Thu, Dec 01 2016, 7:47 am
In colloquial American speech, "to finally meet you" sounds more natural, but splitting the infinitive "to meet" is technically incorrect, so someone who speaks textbook English may place the modifier before or after the verb.
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water_bear88
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Thu, Dec 01 2016, 8:30 am
cm wrote: | In colloquial American speech, "to finally meet you" sounds more natural, but
splitting the infinitive "to meet" is technically incorrect, so someone who speaks textbook English may place the modifier before or after the verb. |
This, and all the more so if the speaker's native language has one-word infinitives, like French or Hebrew.
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imasinger
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Thu, Dec 01 2016, 8:42 am
"Finally! It's so nice to meet you!"
"After all this time, it's nice to meet you in person."
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Sadie
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Thu, Dec 01 2016, 9:11 am
There is nothing wrong with splitting an infinitive in English. It's perfectly grammatical.
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imasinger
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Thu, Dec 01 2016, 9:15 am
Sadie's not wrong, though it's always better to avoid the issue. Here's the word from the OED website:
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What are split infinitives?
Split infinitives happen when you put an adverb between to and a verb, for example:
She used to secretly admire him.
You have to really watch him.
What’s wrong with split infinitives?
Some people believe that split infinitives are grammatically incorrect and should be avoided at all costs. They would rewrite these sentences as:
She used secretly to admire him.
You really have to watch him.
But there’s no real justification for their objection, which is based on comparisons with the structure of Latin. People have been splitting infinitives for centuries, especially in spoken English, and avoiding a split infinitive can sound clumsy. It can also change the emphasis of what’s being said. The sentence:
You really have to watch him. [I.e. ‘It’s important that you watch him’]
doesn’t have quite the same meaning as:
You have to really watch him. [I.e. ‘You have to watch him very closely’]
To split or not to split?
The ‘rule’ against splitting infinitives isn’t followed as strictly today as it used to be. Nevertheless, some people do object very strongly to them. As a result, it’s safest to avoid split infinitives in formal writing, unless the alternative wording seems very clumsy or would alter the meaning of your sentence. |
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