Harp the Wigglytuff @wigglytuffitout@computerfairi.es

i am just saying if any of these octo troopers come at me with literature and a personality test to take, THEY WILL CATCH THESE TEMPLAR HANDS

or... squidlar? i... i don't... listen, okay, i just want to say "illuminaughty" at some point and that's like the sum total of my secret world jokes, along with that one Bees? card from cards against humanity, that's it, i don't got anything else folks

AND NOW.... TIME FOR A NICHE JOKE

#splatoon2 : it's time for our next level in hero mode!! the stage coming up iiiss THE PARKING GARAGE!!!!

me, an astute bee-swallower: OH HELL NO. I KNOW WHAT HAPPENED THE LAST TIME I WENT IN A GARAGE.

apparently tonight on the fediverse timeline we're group shaming someone for enjoying fondant

which is completely valid. carry on doing god's work, everyone.

i also feel like we're reaching layers of absurdity here that may come to encapsulate 2019

the year two thousand and nineteeen, in which a left-leaning youtuber streams himself playing donkey kong 64, taking charitable donations for an organization that helps trans folks in the UK, is mentioned by Cher on twitter, and the developer of Doom joins the stream to yell TRANS RIGHTS!, and, it's not even finished yet, so who knows what is going to continue to happen

while i am not super keen really on hbomberguy personally, i must say, 200k (and climbing! phwoar) raised for a trans charity in the UK is pretty phenomenal

so if anyone ever tries to tell you that rule is for english.... one, english is english, it's not latin. and two, it's not even a rule in latin!!!

SPLIT YOUR INFINITIVES WITH VIGOR AND IMPUNITY, AND IF ANYONE ARGUES WITH YOU, EAT THEM

thank you, this has been today's episode of english major yelling corner

so EVEN THE ROMANS split their infinitives! this rule for latin wasn't even a fuckin RULE to begin with!!! i have gone hunting through fucking ovid with one part of an infinitive for one hand, gritting my teeth as i comb through the other part. there's an infinitive that is split, and then there is an infinitive that has been bitterly divorced for 15 years, ok?? if your infinitive is split by like an entire paragraph, that's above and fucking beyond "to boldly go".

and latin authors WILL ONE HUNDO PERCENT split that motherfucker up if it's in two words!!!

latin is a language where a position in a sentence means fuckall. it's only about those case endings. you can literally chuck all those words in a hat and shake them around and put them in totally random order and it will still make the same sentence.

latin poetry takes advantage of this. a lot. obnoxiously a lot actually.

this rule has never ever been a fucking rule in english. it's a rule in LATIN, but that's because in LATIN, your infinitives are one word. so don't split up one word.

for example, "amare" means "to love". d'aww.

EXCEPT.

E X C E P T. then you get to all of the different forms that you can get infinitives in. like if you want that verb in the perfect passive infinitive - "to have been loved" - you'd say "amatus esse". AND HO SHIT, THAT'S TWO WORDS!

oh god sorry everyone my vyvanse kicked in and so we're doing this i guess:

if ANYONE gives you grief for splitting an infinitive ("to boldly go" is one, where "to go" is split by "boldly"), take out your copy of Strunk and White and BEAT THEM ABOUT THE HEAD AND SHOULDERS WITH YOUR TOME, because even Elements of Style says that splitting an infinitive is okay (just that it should not be used unnecessarily, so to save it when you really want that adverb to be punchy).

honestly i get even more steamed about split infinitives because it's a stupid rule that does not apply to english and should not have EVER been applied to english in the first place BECAUSE IT'S A RULE FROM LATIN *THAT LATIN DOESN'T EVEN FOLLOW*

ultimately, if it's good enough for wild bill shakes, and if it's commonly used and understood by modern writers, it's good enough for me.

and if you see anyone kvetching about it, dear fediverse, make relentless fun of them. "oh you're too good for Shakespeare now are you? going to mark up Hamlet for being ungrammatical?"

stay tuned for more of my """""utterly daring"""""" english major opinions that include shit like "a split infinitive is fine actually"

and what always gets me about these stick-up-their-own-ass types is that even if they go purely with the idea that the english language is immutable and we must not change it in modernity... they're always hoist by their own petard. https://nyulocal.com/shakespeare-used-the-singular-they-and-so-should-you-6452240ca9e0

of course i'd love it if the english language had an elegant third person singular neutral pronoun, but english ain't latin. and we have been using 'they' in this role for centuries.

even if the claims that shakespeare invented these words are drastically overstated, he still was the first person to use many of these in literature that survives. so even giving wild bill shakes as little influence as possible, he was still making the conscious choice to include words that hadn't made it into common use of written english yet. (in other words, it's probable he was 'canonizing' terms invented by/used by lower classes into the realm of the upper-class.)

i feel like all of the people who view the english language as immutable and get really stick-up-their-ass about it also are likely to hold shakespeare in the greatest of esteem

which is ironic, because shakespeare is very clearly of the opposite opinion wrt mutability of the english language

i mean he gave us newfangled terms like 'eyeball'. and 'newfangled'.

i hope that the ghost of ol' wild billy shakes* greets every single person who says "they is singular" in the afterlife and immediately challenges them to a no-holds-barred beatdown

*william shakespeare