What is a split infinitive?

Answer 1

In English, the infinitives begin with the word "to."
To run. To call. To love. To study.

A split infinitive happens when another word is stuck
in between the "to" and its verb: to quickly run,
to loudly call.

Old-fashioned English teachers used to tell us that split infinitives were wrong. This was a silly rule derived from Latin where an infinitive cannot be split - I mean it's impossible because the infinitive is a single word.

Nowadays, we feel that an infinitive may be split - English is designed in such a way as to allow for it. Sometimes the split infinitive can even add an emphasis or special color that could not be obtained otherwise.
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Answer 2

Ever Learn (second answer) gave you a perfect answer first. Give him the points. In Old English you could not split an infinitive because it was a single word: "cuman" 'to come'. But in Middle English, the -an ending on the infinitive was lost and some other means was needed to mark infinitives. That is when the preposition "to" was co-opted to do duty as a marker of the infinitive. Because "to" was a separate word, it has never been bound to the verb so tightly, so it has ALWAYS been possible to put adverbs or adverbial phrases between it and the verb. Only 18th century pedants, who wanted Latin rules applied to English, thought that split infinitives were bad. They tried to force people to keep "to" right next to the verb. They have NEVER been successful except in stressing out generations of English speaking school kids. The vast majority of English speakers have been lovingly splitting their infinitives every day for about 8 centuries without caring one whit about what Latin grammar does.

Answer 3

A split infinitive is a grammatical construction in the English language where a word or phrase, usually an adverb or adverbial phrase, occurs between the marker to and the bare infinitive (uninflected) form of the verb.

Answer 4

An infinitive is to plus the verb: to go; to see; to run; to guess. In formal writing, it is considered incorrect to split the infinitive. In other words, to put a word between the to and the verb. For example: to often go; to rarely see; to hardly run; to frequently guess.

I hope this helps.

CVhow!!

Answer 5

It is where you put in a word or words between the 'to' part and 'be' (for example) part of the verb.

'To go' is the verb. To go boldly is adding something to it. To boldly go is splitting the infinitive.

Personnaly I do not see why it is a crime and if anyone starts then I deliberately set out to split as many inifinitives as I possibly can!

Answer 6

There's a very good example at the very bottom of this very page. Take a look.


... I'll wait...



Did you see it? Nope it's not there. It's a ruse - a scam - just to get your attention away from WHAT SHOULD BE YOUR LIFE!
Forget all their crap - if you can speak to someone and have them smile at the appropriate times or nod their heads at the right moment in agreement with your words, then you've mastered the English language! (Or have come close enough.) Move on to how the dead leaves smell and sound, and how nice those brunettes look! :-)

Answer 7

bare infinit

Answer 8

Give the points to Ever Learn. He nailed it.

Answer 9

Truthfully, I've no idea.

But "To boldly go where no man has gone before" is supposed to be an example.

Answer 10

An infinitive with a big ax though it.