英语语法：87 Split Infinitives

by Mignon Fogarty

Today, I'm gonna get crazy. I said that if people wrote reviews at iTunes, I would split infinitives 2, and you wrote a lot of reviews. So, to say thank you, I'm going to purposefully split as many infinitives as I can!

My secret, though, is that splitting infinitives actually isn't such a wild and woolly endeavor. I know it might come as a surprise, but Grammar Girl isn't actually that adventurous 3. So although you've probably heard that it's bad to split infinities 4, it just isn't true. You could even call it a grammar myth.

To understand, we first have to clearly define the word infinitive 1. Wikipedia defines infinitive as the unmarked form of a verb, but you really need examples to understand what that means. In English, there are two kinds of infinitives: full infinitives and bare infinitives. Bare infinitives are the kind of verbs you usually see in a dictionary, such as

go

make

run

define

split

On the other hand, full infinitives are made up of two words, usually putting the word to in front of the bare verb. For example:

to go

to make

to run

to define

to split

The logic 5 behind the 19th-century rule about not splitting infinitives rests on comparing English to Latin, because in Latin there is no two-word form of the infinitive. They don't have to deal with full verbs versus 6 bare verbs. Therefore, it's impossible to split infinitives in Latin. For some reason, many grammarians in the 19th century got the notion that because it is impossible to split infinitives in Latin, it shouldn't be done in English either.

But notions change over time, and today almost everyone agrees that it is OK to split infinitives, especially when you would have to change the meaning of the sentence or go through writing gymnastics to avoid the split. English isn't Latin after all.

So here's an example of a sentence with a split infinitive:

EXAMPLE: Steve decided 7 to quickly remove Amy's cats.

In this case, the word quickly splits the infinitive to remove: to quickly remove.

If you try to just unsplit the verb, you actually change the meaning. For example,you might try to say:

EXAMPLE: Steve decided quickly to remove Amy's cats.

Now, instead of saying that Steve removed Amy's cats quickly (zip zip) while she stepped out for a minute, you're saying that he made the decision to remove the cats quickly.

You could rewrite the sentence without the split infinitive to make the same point. For example:

EXAMPLE: Steve decided to grab Amy's cats and set them free before she got back from the corner market.

But that isn't really necessary. The bottom line is that you can usually avoid splitting infinitives if you want to, but there's no reason to go out of your way to avoid it, and certainly don't let anyone tell you that it's forbidden.

And here's a bonus bit: If you want to remember what a split infinitive is, just remember what might be the most famous example: Star Trek's “to boldly go where no man has gone before.” To boldly go, is a split infinitive.

That's all. As always, this is Grammar Girl, striving to be your friendly guide in the writing world. You'll find a transcript 8 of this podcast at。。。. In this transcript split infinitives are in italics. If you'd like to call in with a question or comment the number is 206-338-GIRL.