So, yeah, while misuse of literally literally bugs the shit out of me a lot, I'm fairly tossed up about whether it's worth bugging out over. The recent surfacing of the 'poisonous/venomous' distinction smacks of pop-culture faddism and as such, is just dull and tedious.

Academics, scientists, and engineers generally understand these details (indeed, Dalton Caldwell almost certainly _does_ know the distinction, being as he was, I gather, a 'Founder/CEO of a Sequoia portfolio company'). Complicated, careful work (in nuclear physics or space launches, for instance) generally depends on this, no doubt.

But outside those domains -- in a personal blog, for instance, or when noodling catfish in the bayou, say -- splitting infinitives might be ok, or even a shibboleth. See Dave Chappelle's analysis on Inside The Actors Studio regarding speaking as a black American.

And, while I don't care to hurtle ad-hominems ad-hoc, if you _are_ going to be pedantic about the minutiae of someone else's considered work, it's possibly worth knowing that the word is 'vicinity'.