Literature

[recordman]

Would someone like to give an example of'Splitting one's infinitives'?

[joggerjayne]

to boldly go (where no man has gone before)

[joggerjayne]

The infinitive is ... "to go"

It would be good construction to say ... "to go, boldly"

But, on Star Trek, they split the infinitive and said ... "to boldly go"

Ouch!

[Tilly2]

The most famous one is the one from Star Trek. 'To boldly go where none have gone before'. Or something like that.

[joggerjayne]

Infinitive

... "to type"

Normal sentence ...

... I am going to type an answer quickly.

Split infinitive ...

... I am going to quickly type an answer.

[jim360]

Split infinitives don't really exist in English, although many think they do. There can be no doubt that "To boldly go" has so much more impact than either "to go boldly" or "boldly to go", because the stresses hit the right place - da DAH da Da in the split version, as opposed to da Da DAH da or DAH da da Da, both of which don't run off the tongue nearly as nicely.

[Old_Geezer]

I don;t recall ever being taught what an infinitive is. Sounds like a word with an uncountable number of letters.

I too would agree infinitives seem to be better split.

[Quizmonkey]

The whole reason splitting is/was considered gramatically incorrect is that the infinitive form of a verb should be perceived as ONE single unit - the fact that that unit consists of two words in English is irrelevant but causes the problem here because they can be split by an adverb. In virtually all other languages, the infinitive is one word. Not sure what you mean by 'don't exist in english' Jim360...

[dannyk13]

Explained here,
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/split-infinitives

[jourdain2]

joggerjayne beat me to it. Star Trek's 'to boldly go' was brilliant for teaching pupils about the split infinitive. They could all refer to it mentally and apply it to the sentence they were constructing.

[jim360]

I suppose what I really mean is "they're nothing wrong with them" rather than that they don't exist.

[jno]

it's about style rather than grammar. Sometimes split infinitives sound terrible. Sometimes they're hardly noticeable. Sometimes (eg Star Trek) they're plainly better than all the alternatives.

[DaisyNonna]

Not to split infinitives is preferred rather than to not split infinitives

[jno]

to split infinitives... not.

[Canary42]

Good to see so many have taken the trouble to didactically respond.

[zebo]

Churchill, I think, said something like "split infinitives, a standard of English up with which we will not put", correct but contorted!

[jno]

no, that was putting prepositions at the end of sentences. What did he say that for?

[Tilly2]

For what did he say it? To cleverly show the rest of us up!

[zebo]

Whoops, mixed my prepositions and infinitives there, sorry. Still love his sentiment though, he was a sort of Tim Vine of his day, some great one-liners.

[Quizmonkey]

Churchill, the Tim Vine of his day - now there's an essay subject!