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RSSWhat is a Split Infinitive?
This is the passage that contains what may be the most famous split infinitive of all time:
Space… the Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.
to boldly go – The infinitive is to go. The adverb boldly splits it by coming between the “to” and the “go.”
So what’s wrong with that?
Nothing.
Although generations of grammarians have done their best to forbid the splitting of the English infinitive, their efforts have failed to stamp out the practice.
Why?
Because it can be split.
An infinitive is the basic form of a verb.
In many, if not most, languages, the infinitive is one word.
In English, however, the infinitive is made up of two words.
Here, for example, are some French, Spanish, and Latin infinitives and their English equivalents:
French: aller (to go) courir (to run) écrire (to write)
Spanish: beber (to drink) escuchar (to listen) hablar (to speak)
Latin: capere (to take) cupere (to desire) optare (to choose)
French, Spanish, and Latin infinitives cannot be split because they are expressed by one word.
There’s no point in forbidding English speakers to place a modifier between the “to” and the verb that follows it. They can do it, so they will.
Sometimes splitting the infinitive is the only way to express the thought to be conveyed.
Consider the following sentences.
I want to live simply.
I simply want to live.
I want to simply live.
Each of these three sentences conveys a different meaning.
I want to live simply. The thought is that the speaker wants to live without the trappings of affluence. The speaker prefers a simple life, perhaps like what Thoreau describes in Walden.
I simply want to live. Here the thought seems to be that the speaker wants to live as opposed to dying. Do whatever you have to do, Doctor. I simply want to live.
I want to simply live. The speaker is tired of going to work, worrying about responsibility. I’ve been a drudge too long. I want to simply live and not worry about tomorrow.
TIP:
If the split infinitive coveys your intended thought and sounds idiomatic, leave it.
If the split infinitive sounds awkward or muddies your thought, rewrite the sentence.
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You gave three examples to show that splitting infinitives is “the only way to express the thought to be conveyed.”
I want to live simply.
I simply want to live.
I want to simply live.
The example that is split could be express without the split by changing places with simply and to, thus:
I want to live simply.
I simply want to live.
I want simply to live.
Is there some difference in meaning that I am missing?
I’m sorry, but I can’t agree that spitting infinitives is correct, however common it may be.
Nor can I agree that is justified in order to convey meaning.
In your example “I want to simply live” I think the correct sentence is “I want simply to live.”
–paul
Sorry, Paul, I disagree with you. The rule about not splitting infinitives was artificially imposed on us by 18th century grammarians who believed Latin was superior to English. What’s to stop me deciding German is superior to English and therefore deciding all my verbs to the end of the sentence to send? See what I mean?
For more on my argument for splitting with abandon, you can take a look at my post on this topic from a couple of years ago:
http://www.daccreative.co.uk/goodcopybadcopy/?p=5
That’s okay Clare. I didn’t expect many, or any, people to agree with me. However; I am one of those chalk-on-blackboard people who cringe every time they hear “to boldly go.” I can’t help wondering what “to boldly” means.
I can’t see the logic in blaming it on Latin. It seems to me, if the verb is “to go” you shouldn’t chop it up. I like to think of it as “togo” or “to-go” with the words remaining inseparable.
Come to think of it though, if we want to change the rules, why not drop the “to”? Other languages don’t need it, so why English?
“Boldly go when no man has gone before.”
–paul
I think it is fantastic, makes perfect sense to me and this sentence should put any naysayer to rest,
“There’s no point in forbidding English speakers to place a modifier between the “to” and the verb that follows it. They can do it, so they will.”
I like the version from Leah Rewolinski’s Star Wreck books. “.. go where no one wanted to go before.”
“To boldly split infinitives, where no man has split infinitives before!”
If splitting infinitives doesn’t sound awkward and delivers the thought, I urge all to boldly split where grammarians have not gone before.
I thought that Roy Peter Clark, in his book Writing Tools, declared adverbs as being dangerous. Boldly is an adverb and it does not really modify go in another direction, it just makes it sound braver.
In the book he gives an example: sweetly faked attention. Faked goes in one direction, sweetly modifies it in another.
So in my view boldly go goes in the same direction as go, so boldly is unnecessary. Of course, being a Trekkie, I have no intention of changing Trekkie history or culture by annihilating boldly…
Good; the two fake grammar rules that annoy me most are this split infinitive nonsense and the one about ending a sentence with a preposition.
Come to think of it though, if we want to change the rules, why not drop the “to”? Other languages don’t need it, so why English?
“Boldly go when no man has gone before.”
Because that changes the meaning to an imperative
“What’s to stop me deciding German is superior to English and therefore deciding all my verbs to the end of the sentence to send?”
Well, for one the fact that German doesn’t do that.
I want, simply, to live.