nuances - Nominalisation and は

I posted a question a long time ago about why we need の in this sentence:

毎日、同じ物を食べるのは、面白くない

Eating the same thing everyday is not interesting.

To which I was told that adding の here nominalises the verb and turns it into the gerund which I understood completely. However, I was just curious as to what the nuance is if you didn't have の?

毎日、同じ物を食べるは、面白くない

I think the nuance here could be interpreted as

"To eat the same thing everyday is not interesting"

But I'm really unsure.

I read in another post that you cannot put が here because が takes a noun. But I read nowhere else about having は here without the の to nominalise the verb.

Before you post about "you can nominalise the verb with の then add が ~", this is not really what I'm asking.

I just want to know what is the nuance if I just have は after the verb and no の. Is that grammatically correct? I have not seen it anywhere and I'm curious as to where and when this would be used (if it makes sense).

Answer

In "regular" Modern grammar, it would not be considered correct to say:

「毎日{まいにち}、同{おな}じ物{もの}を食{た}べるは、おもしろくない。」

You need to place the nominalizer 「の」 between 「食べる」 and 「は」.

In Classical Japanese, however, it was perfectly grammatical to place a subject marker 「は」 or 「が」 directly after a verb in its dictionary form.

Even today, you will occasionally encounter the remnant of that old usage in certain fixed expressions such as:

「逃{に}げるが勝{か}ち。」= "He who fights and runs away may live to fight another day." A literal TL is: "To run away is to win."

「見{み}るは信{しん}ずるなり。」= "Seeing is believing."

If you actually used this old form (sans nominalizer) outside of these fixed expressions in an everyday kind of conversation today, you would sound incredibly funny.