Complementary Undertow
http://www.eeicommunications.com/eye/undertow.html

Editorial Eye, The
2003

Abstract:

In this introductory paragraph to a column by the Washington Post's Stephen S. Rosenfeld, the subject seems to be paddling helplessly against a strong undertow of contradictory wording in the complement: To look in on current official and expert thinking about the world population problem is to become aware of a disappearing act that has transformed and mooted much of the common public understanding of this issue. There's enough happening in this sentence to make parsing helpful. Nothing's grammatically wrong with the parallel infinitive phrases: the subject is to look in and the complement is to become aware -- no mixed construction here (for more about that, see Test Yourself). But some mixed-up thinking is tugging the adjective-heavy prepositional phrases away from the infinitives they modify. And what's being equated is sunk by the fact that the complement is itself qualified by a paradoxical statement.