A split infinitive is a grammatical construction in which an adverb or adverbial phrase separates the "to" and "infinitive" constituents of what was traditionally called the "full infinitive", but is more commonly known in modern linguistics as the to-infinitive (e.g. to go). In the history of English language aesthetics, the split infinitive was often deprecated, despite its prevalence in colloquial speech. The opening sequence of the Star Trek television series contains a well-known example, "to boldly go where no man has gone before", wherein the adverb boldly was said to split the full infinitive, to go.
Multiple words may split a to-infinitive, such as: "The population is expected to more than double in the next ten years."
In the 19th century, some linguistic prescriptivists sought to disallow the split infinitive, and the resulting conflict had considerable cultural importance. The construction still renders disagreement, but modern English usage guides have largely dropped the objection to it.[1]
The split infinitive terminology is not widely used in modern linguistics. Some linguists question whether a to-infinitive phrase can meaningfully be called a "full infinitive" and, consequently, whether an infinitive can be "split" at all.
^Walsh, Bill (2000). Contemporary Books (ed.). Lapsing into a comma: a curmudgeon's guide to the many things that can go wrong in print—and how to avoid them. Lincolnwood, Illinois: Contemporary Books. pp. 112–113. ISBN 0-8092-2535-2.
A splitinfinitive is a grammatical construction in which an adverb or adverbial phrase separates the "to" and "infinitive" constituents of what was traditionally...
Infinitive (abbreviated INF) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many...
structure", citing as an example the phrase "to boldly splitinfinitives that no man had split before", as originally used in Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's...
Galactic Empire, when bold adventurers dared "to boldly splitinfinitives that no man had split before". In the 1995 book The Physics of Star Trek, Lawrence...
attain frigidity. Splitinfinitive The English-speaking world may be divided into (1) those who neither know nor care what a splitinfinitive is; (2) those...
proscription of established and unproblematic English usages, such as the splitinfinitive and the use of which in a restrictive relative clause. On Language...
dialects) Splitinfinitive, in which some verbs end with -a while others end with -e; e.g. å væra versus å bite, common in Eastern Norway Splitinfinitive, with...
grammatical or stylistic error – see splitinfinitive for details. The main uses of to-infinitives, or infinitive phrases introduced by them, are as follows:...
Portuguese personal pronouns § Syntax on future verbs Separable verb Splitinfinitive "tmesis". Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived...
as "I could care less". Yankovic noted that he deliberately added a splitinfinitive in the lyrics to see if listeners would notice. The line "Try your...
here" Flat adverbs – e.g., "Drive safe" as opposed to "Drive safely" Splitinfinitives – e.g., "To boldly go where no man has gone before" as opposed to...
"proceeds to give the heft of an adjective and even transforms it into a splitinfinitive." He can be seen on the archive footage (and the closing credits) on...
and it has "never been wrong to 'split' an infinitive". In some cases it may be preferable to split an infinitive. In his grammar book A Plea for the...
has been the subject of dispute among prescriptive grammarians; see splitinfinitive. past participial clause (active type), such as made a cake and seen...
had been committed in the Sixth-form room. The victim was an infinitive. It had been split, apparently by some blunt weapon such as a bad pen. The body...
sentences in prepositions. The rule of no splitinfinitives was adopted from Latin because Latin has no splitinfinitives. Language portal English usage controversies...
(1890) Anastrophe Apposition Figure of speech Golden line Parenthesis Splitinfinitive Epiphrase Aubrey, Mike. Discontinuous Syntax in the New Testament part...
vernacular language. In 1834, an anonymous writer advised against the splitinfinitive, reasoning that the construction was not a frequent feature of English...
anomalies can be found in the audio adventure The Legacy of Time: The SplitInfinitive, when a temporal anomaly results in the 1960s and 1970s becoming briefly...
film Maybe Someday. She has also published three books of poetry, SplitInfinitive, In the Night I Go Sailing, and Blind Accidents, and has recorded two...
interposed between component words or syllables of the head, such as in splitinfinitives (to boldly go) or infixation, most commonly expletive infixation...
"Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation." "It is bad to carelessly splitinfinitives." "Never use no double negatives." "No sentence fragments." "Parentheses...
resulting in the invention of such arbitrary rules as the rejection of the splitinfinitive. However, in the 18th century, William Jones did a detailed comparison...
contemporary English usage. For example, the editors did not discourage splitinfinitives, but instead justified their use in some contexts. The first edition...
America. Retrieved April 17, 2019. David Row's gorgeous gold and black SplitInfinitive (1990) is a kind of postmodernist altarpiece, a vision of the empyrean...
Global Information