Thread: It's nice to talk to you = You are nice to talk to?

Many thanks!

bitpicker
'it' is the dummy/grammatical/empty/... subject whereas the infinitive phrase is the actual/logical/... subject.
cf.

Инфинитивный оборот (Infinitive clause ). Формальное подлежащее it обыкновенно вводится, если логическим подлежащим является инфинитивный оборот. В частности, it часто используется в инфинитивных оборотах, вводимых предлогом for (For- clause ). It is difficult to imagine worse English. — Трудно представить себе худший английский. It was difficult for them to talk and so they for the most part kept silent. — Им было трудно разговаривать, поэтому большую часть времени они молчали.

Originally Posted by bitpicker

In English, sentences may end in prepositions. The silly "rule" saying that they may not, which you might find quoted sometimes, is a remnant of an early humanistic outlook on grammar when grammarians thought that Latin was the ideal language, and therefore anything which was not possible in Latin must be a somehow debased or devolved grammatical feature best forgotten. Which is something, as is sometimes ascribed as a quote to Churchill, up with which we should not put.

Correct: something with which we should not put up.

(Also correct: something which we should not put up with)


Quite so. As a very sloppy writer myself I would have to support this.

It's like what it says in Hume. The more outlandish the doctrine the greater the merit one might hope to attain by believing it.

For besides the unavoidable incoherences which must be reconciled and adjusted, one may safely affirm that all popular theologygrammar, especially the scholasticthat of the style guardians, has a kind of appetite for absurdity and contradiction. If that theology went not beyond reason and common sense, her doctrines would appear too easy and familiar. Amazement must of necessity be raised; mystery affected; darkness and obscurity sought after; and a foundation of merit afforded the devout votaries, who desire an opportunity of subduing their rebellious reason, by the belief of the most unintelligible sophisms.