There is no reason why we shouldn't be able to split an infinitive, any more than we should forsake instant coffee and air travel because they weren't available to the Romans.
Bill BrysonPeople don't talk like this, theytalklikethis. Syllables, words, sentences run together like a watercolour left in the rain. To understand what anyone is saying to us we must separate these noises into words and the words into sentences so that we might in our turn issue a stream of mixed sounds in response.
Bill BrysonGermans are flummoxed by humor, the Swiss have no concept of fun, the Spanish think there is nothing at all ridiculous about eating dinner at midnight, and the Italians should never, ever have been let in on the invention of the motor car.
Bill BrysonBecause we humans are big and clever enough to produce and utilize antibiotics and disinfectants, it is easy to convince ourselves that we have banished bacteria to the fringes of existence. Don't you believe it. Bacteria may not build cities or have interesting social lives, but they will be here when the Sun explodes. This is their planet, and we are on it only because they allow us to be.
Bill BrysonI can't imagine there has ever been a more gratifying time or place to be alive than America in the 1950s. No country had ever known such prosperity.
Bill BrysonOut of the thirty thousand types of edible plants thought to exist on Earth, just elevenโcorn, rice, wheat, potatoes, cassava, sorghum, millet, beans, barley, rye, and oatsโaccount for 93 percent of all that humans eat, and every one of them was first cultivated by our Neolithic ancestors.
Bill Bryson