Right rules for commenting

At the new traditionalist group blog, The Orthosphere (“ortho” meaning right or correct), one of the founders of the site, Svein Sellanraa, whom I do not know, has a brief entry summarizing the rules for commenting. I agree with virtually all his points, and, more importantly, with the underlying sensibility that informs them. I have said many of the same things at VFR, but in scattered remarks here and there, never formally and together, as Sellanraa has admirably done here.

Some of the contributors will be familiar to readers of VFR, namely: Thomas Bertonneau, Jim Kalb, Kristor Lawson, Mark Richardson, and Alan Roebuck.

On another issue, the contributor Bonald has an entry today entitled, “Tips on being a good reactionary.” The first sub-head is, “How to not be a sellout.” The split infinitive, especially when used so prominently and unnecessarily, clashes with a correct sense of the English language. The phrase should be, “How not to be a sell-out.”

Whether they like it or not, readers can be assured that I will never sell out the anti-split infinitive cause.

- end of initial entry -

Gintas writes:

You wrote:

The phrase should be, “How not to be a sell-out.”

I am now in the habit of doing this:

1) read “How to not be a sell-out”;

2) mentally fix it to “How not to be a sell-out”;

3) reduce my “quality of writing” score for the writer.

And he did it to “to be.” Could you imagine, “To be or to not be, that is the question.” I want to scream just seeing it that way.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 24, 2012 09:35 AM | Send