back to article To BALDLY GO where few have gone before: NASA 'naut twin to spend YEAR IN SPAACE

Three 'nauts are on their way to the International Space Station – and two of them are going to remain onboard the orbiting lab for a full year The pair will tough out the marathon stretch so NASA can understand more about the long-term effects of life in space on the human body. Youtube Video On Friday, the astronauts …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Meh

    Baldly go?

    Not only a split infinitive, but the pun reflects baldly on the Reg staff. Hang your heads in shame!

    1. frank ly

      Re: Baldly go?

      The sub ed deserves a slap upside the head for making a pun about slapheads.

      (Do I get the job now?)

    2. John H Woods Silver badge

      Re: Baldly go?

      Come on, it's acceptable to occasionally split infinitives.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Baldly go?

        Okay, I'll provisionally accept that.

      2. Bleu

        Re: Baldly go?

        More than occasional, the cases where it really should be avoided are those that jar because of style and those where the meaning varies with post- or pre-verb placement (normally, etc.).

        Otherwise, the 'rule' is a crock.

        People with education 'split infinitives' in speech all of the time.

    3. Graham Dawson Silver badge
      Headmaster

      Re: Baldly go?

      The entire concept of the split infinitive is derived from languages in which tenses are conjugated with suffixes and prefixes and the infinitive form is a single word. By contrast, the English infinitive includes the particle "to", a separate word.

      The concept of a split infinitive is nonsense in most languages - you can't split a single word. The application of the split infinitive prohibition to English originally rested on the belief that because Latin - seen as the ideal language at the time the rule was invented - did not split infinitives, therefore no language should do so.

      The problem arises, however: English is not Latin. Its grammatical rules are very different. The split infinitive does not apply and has not applied for perhaps a thousand years. To boldly go is grammatically as valid as to go boldly. Avoidance of the so-called split infinitive leads to clunky and occasionally confusing language structures, similarly to the prohibition of ending a sentence with preposition - it is unnatural to our language and needlessly pedantic. To so loftily and haughtily proscribe a linguistic form, merely because a latinist a couple of centuries ago decided such a form was inferior to the pure language of his study, is something we should no longer be required to put up with.

      1. Swarthy

        Re:Graham Dawson: Baldly go?

        ...is something up with which we should no longer be required to put.

        Case in point?

      2. Bleu

        Re: Baldly go?

        You have cut-and-pasted part of your post, neither using quotation marks nor giving attribution. Shame on you.

        I agree with the sentiment, though.

        The reason the split-infinitive is such a fave error for spotting by the semi-literate is that even an idiot is able to spot it (a high rate of false positives from the idiots, prepositional 'to' frequently being identified as the start of a 'split infinitive').

        In 'murica, it seems that many teachers tell their students to always (see what I did there?) place the adverb after the verb, even where it should naturally precede it.

        That idiocy is all about avoiding the split infinitive. Unbelievable.

        Then again, 'murican teachers also seen to advise their charges to avoid 'with' at all costs, except in such inane new formulations as 'I met with him at noon'.

        Many more.

        1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Re: Baldly go?

          In 'murica, it seems that many teachers tell their students to always (see what I did there?) place the adverb after the verb, even where it should naturally precede it.

          Evidence? I've never seen this practice, nor heard anyone advocate it. And I have degrees in English, and a mother who was an English teacher, and I've been a member of the National Council of Teachers of English, &c.

          1. Bleu

            Re: Baldly go?

            You are truly a 'murican and you have seen no sign of those things?

            Always postfixing adverbs is not part of American english as a very interesting set of dialects, I love the speech of the mid-west, the south.wbut, as I said, advice from moronic teachers, very recent. Barbaric as it is, the motive is fear of splitting the infitive.

        2. Graham Dawson Silver badge

          Re: Baldly go?

          Cut and pasted? Which part?

          1. Bleu

            Re: Baldly go?

            You can work that out for yourself. What part? Your opening para. It is not yours.

            1. Graham Dawson Silver badge

              Re: Baldly go?

              Right. Show me where I allegedly copied it from.

              I'll wait.

            2. Graham Dawson Silver badge

              Re: Baldly go?

              Yep, that's what I thought.

            3. gazthejourno (Written by Reg staff)

              Re: Re: Baldly go?

              <moderator hat>

              Thou shalt not abuse the report function to settle an argument by trying to get unremarkable posts removed. Put on your big girl panties and argue it out between yourselves.

              </moderator hat>

              1. Graham Dawson Silver badge

                Re: Baldly go?

                Well I'll cop to it, but in my defence he did falsely accuse me of plagiarism without evidence and then never backed it up.

                And I may have been a little tipsy.

                And... yeah. Shutting up now.

  2. PhilipN Silver badge

    Second part of the story?

    Would think that testing after they return would be a lot more intensive and of course longer term. The Article mentions the twin, which is a brilliant idea, but it would be nice to know more.

  3. Cliff

    Hold on a second...

    Have we actually checked which one is the evil one before committing to a year? This could end badly if they manage to pack a great big parabolic mirror in with their stuff.

    1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: Hold on a second...

      And if there is a white cat along with the parabolic mirror, we're doomed.

    2. Graham Marsden
      Devil

      Re: Hold on a second...

      Damn them! The evil one seems to have failed to grow a beard...

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Russians rocket rocket-challenged NASA's folically-challenged naut's twin into orbit.

    Boffins: We're going to poke him with holes and see what happens.

    1. Martin Budden Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Russians rocket rocket-challenged NASA's folically-challenged naut's twin into orbit.

      How do you poke someone with a hole?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Russians rocket rocket-challenged NASA's folically-challenged naut's twin into orbit.

        Good point.

        I think its a reference to the innoculations.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Actually, where four others have gone before.

    Mir EO-3: Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov, 366 days (1987-1988)

    Mir EO-16/17: Valeri Polyakov, 438 days (1994-1995)

    Mir EO-26/27: Sergei Avdeyev, 380 days (1998-1999)

    Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mir_expeditions

  6. jai

    but... what of the effect of gravity on hair loss?

    there's no way to know from this experiment if spending so long in space causes all your hair to fall out and clog up critical systems in the spaceship!!

  7. Paul Hovnanian Silver badge

    Practical hairstyle

    Looking back at all the photos of medium to long haired astronauts, I'm surprised that more don't go for the bald or buzz cut look. Or at least throw a scrunchie on it to prevent that "bad zero gee hair" look.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Practical hairstyle

      > Or at least throw a scrunchie on it to prevent that "bad zero gee hair" look.

      Gee, I don't know. I kinda like the idea of space station personnel having that Christopher Lloyd look. Seems appropriate somehow.

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