WHich one below is right?

Posted by Smokey Stover on September 07, 2004

In Reply to: WHich one below is right? posted by Bob on September 06, 2004

: : : Farmers are likely to shoot any dogs "on sight".
: : : or-
: : : Farmers are liely to shoot "on sight " any dog.

: : : Does the latter one make sense?
: : : pleas let me know

: : your second one would avoid what I understand is called 'splitting the infinitive' but the first is actually what somebody is much more likely to say eg. come round here boy, and I'll shoot you on sight.
: : I think 'shoot on sight' was a military command that has got into the mainstream - like "Fire At Will!" - poor sweet William...

: Both are correct. Neither splits the infinitive ("to shoot') which is a trivial grammatical infraction in any case.

While both may be correct, I don't like either. I believe that both "any dogs" and "any dog" imply a clause to follow, such as "any dog that they see." Thus they leave the reader or interlocutor hanging, waiting for that clause. One could say that "Farmers are likely to shoot dogs on sight." (Lordy be, what farmers are those?) This sentence also exhibits the expected periodic structure, that is, it puts the most loaded word or phrase just before the period, leading up to it, so to speak. I don't know why the phrase "on sight" is placed in quotation marks by the author--certainly not for the same reason that I place it between quotation marks. SS