The author of this text is Kel Richards (Found in my Mail Box today).
OZWORD OF THE DAY: “Split infinitive”
In The Weekend Australian I read a review of a book about AI and its disastrous impact on undergraduate student essay writing. The review largely approved of the book, but towards the end the reviewer wrote this: ‘A quibble: throughout the book, he splits more infinitives than Abraham Lincoln split logs. Is a writer of books on writing permitted such literary slovenliness?’
My problem with this assertion is that I don’t think splitting the infinitive is literary slovenliness. I don’t even think it’s wrong!
Yes, I know a lot of grammar books over the years have fulminated about this and told us never to split the infinitive. But they were wrong. I shall explain.
I suppose I should start by explaining what ‘splitting the infinitive’ means. The infinitive form of any verb is the form that has the preposition ‘to’ in front of it. So, the infinitive form of the walking verb is ‘to walk.’ And every other verb has a similar construction. We talk about the verb ‘to walk’ and then all the tenses it can take—present (‘I walk’) present continuous (‘I am walking’) future (‘I will walk’) past (‘I walked) and so on.
But the basic form of the verb, which we call the infinitive form, is ‘to walk.’ Now the old grammar books said you should never place a word (an adverb or whatever) in between the ‘to’ and its verb. They claimed that ‘to slowly walk’ was wrong because it ‘split the infinitive.’
For example—take the verb ‘to go’. That’s the infinitive form. When Star Trek says its mission is ‘to boldly go’ it is splitting the infinitive, by putting ‘boldly’ between the ‘to’ and the verb.
Now, here’s the point—it is not grammatically wrong to split the infinitive. There is no grammatical rule.
So, how did the obsession about ‘splitting the infinitive’ arise? From Latin. The earliest English grammars (and fact, most English grammars, for many years) were based on Latin grammar. Since no one had any idea about what English grammar should be, the school masters just decided to apply the rules of Latin to English. And in Latin you can’t split the infinitive form of the verb, because it is just one word.
So (sometime in the 1800s) it was decided to apply this to English. And it doesn’t apply.
Shakespeare (and countless other writers) have split the infinitive to their heart’s content. You can do the same. Sometimes it is inelegant to split the infinitive—in that case, don’t. But more often it is awkward to move the adverb just to avoid splitting the infinitive—and it doesn’t need to move.
On this subject you can divide people into three groups:
(1) those who have no idea what an infinitive—split or otherwise—is, and who don’t care;
(2) those understand and froth at mouth when anyone breaks the rules of Latin in writing English;
(3) those who understand, and exercise care so as not to write inelegantly or awkwardly.
Yes, I know I said a lot in a short space, but is it clear?
Tonight I will join Peta Credlin for ‘Words Matter’ on Sky News.
Pls contact Kel at ozwords.com.au to learn more about OZ Slang and Aussie Language.
Posted by Peter H Bloecker, authorized by Kel Richards to share the word.
Updated Wed 16 Apr 2025
Website Kel Richards
My Website
My Blog
You must be logged in to post a comment.