Finally, there is a construction with a word or words between to and an infinitive that nevertheless is not considered a split infinitive, namely, infinitives joined by a conjunction. [31] Researchers at Lancaster University and Cambridge University Press have concluded that split infinitives are now nearly three times as common in British speech as they were in the early 1990s. Split infinitives reappeared in the 18th century and became more common in the 19th. To boldly go where no man has gone before This line reinvigorated the last-lasting debate over split infinitives. And he called all his knights to come to him... And he called all his knights, so that they might advise him, This page was last edited on 18 December 2020, at 19:10. This question results: "Has dread of the split infinitive led the writer to attach the adverbs ['absurdly' and 'badly'] to the wrong verbs, and would he not have done better to boldly split both infinitives, since he cannot put the adverbs after them without spoiling his rhythm" (italics added)? It was the Victorians who decided that splitting an infinitive was a grammatical error. This is attributed to Yogi Berra. Compound split infinitives, i.e., infinitives split by more than one word, usually involve a pair of adverbs or a multi-word adverbial: Examples of non-adverbial elements participating in the split-infinitive construction seem rarer in Modern English than in Middle English. George Bernard Shaw wrote letters to newspapers supporting writers who used the split infinitive and Raymond Chandler complained to the editor of The Atlantic about a proofreader who interfered with Chandler's split infinitives: By the way, would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss-waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will remain split, and when I interrupt the velvety smoothness of my more or less literate syntax with a few sudden words of barroom vernacular, this is done with the eyes wide open and the mind relaxed and attentive. The sentence can be rewritten to maintain its meaning, however, by using a noun or a different grammatical aspect of the verb, or by avoiding the informal "get rid": Fowler notes that the option of rewriting is always available but questions whether it is always worth the trouble. "Where no man has gone before" is a phrase made popular through its use in the title sequence of the original 1966–1969 Star Trek science fiction television series, describing the mission of the starship Enterprise. However, a sentence such as "to more than double" must be completely rewritten to avoid the split infinitive; it is ungrammatical to put the words "more than" anywhere else in the sentence. By contrast, 87 percent of the panel deemed acceptable the multi-word adverbial in. Even as these authorities were condemning the split infinitive, others were endorsing it: Brown, 1851 (saying some grammarians had criticized it and it was less elegant than other adverb placements but sometimes clearer);[35] Hall, 1882; Onions, 1904; Jespersen, 1905; and Fowler and Fowler, 1906. [13] According to Mignon Fogarty, "today almost everyone agrees that it is OK to split infinitives". go) is extended by the particle to in order to produce the to-infinitive phrase (sometimes termed a full infinitive), to go. (In the sentence "I had my daughter clean her room", clean is a bare infinitive; in "I told my daughter to clean her room", to clean is a full infinitive.) Besides, the argument is inherantly flawed, because if Latin has no equivalent of the marker to, it provides no model for the question of where to put it, and therefore supports neither splitting nor not-splitting. The article says that euphony or emphasis or clarity or all three can be improved by splitting the infinitive in certain situations. How? Another early prohibition came from an anonymous American in 1834:[24][26][27], The practice of separating the prefix of the infinitive mode from the verb, by the intervention of an adverb, is not unfrequent among uneducated persons … I am not conscious, that any rule has been heretofore given in relation to this point … The practice, however, of not separating the particle from its verb, is so general and uniform among good authors, and the exceptions are so rare, that the rule which I am about to propose will, I believe, prove to be as accurate as most rules, and may be found beneficial to inexperienced writers. [5] William Shakespeare used it once,[8] or perhaps twice. Presumably, this would not have occurred in a prose text by the same author. The Columbia Guide to Standard American English notes that the split infinitive "eliminates all possibility of ambiguity", in contrast to the "potential for confusion" in an unsplit construction. The method may not be perfect, but it is all I have. George Curme writes: "If the adverb should immediately precede the finite verb, we feel that it should immediately precede also the infinitive…"[15] Thus, if one says: This is supported by the fact that split infinitives are often used as echoes, as in the following exchange, in which the riposte parodies the slightly odd collocation in the original sentence: Here is an example of an adverb being transferred into split infinitive position from a parallel position in a different construction. To seek out new life and new civilizations. The earliest use of the term split infinitive on record dates from 1890. With a slight change in meaning: she could have a teddy bear collection without having collected it herself, e.g., if she bought it in its entirety. No other grammatical issue has so divided English speakers since the split infinitive was declared to be a solecism in the 19c [19th century]: raise the subject of English usage in any conversation today and it is sure to be mentioned. [1] In traditional English grammar, the bare infinitive (e.g. Most of the surface of the earth has now … I heard in an old British TV program (it was a funny sitcom, not an English teaching program) that it should be "To go boldly", due to some grammar rule about infinitives Is it incorrect to say "To boldly go where no man has gone before"? Thread starter Nemoneiros; Start date Nov 16, 2020; Nemoneiros Executive Member. James A. W. Heffernan and John E. Lincoln. Bernstein continues: "Curme's contention that the split infinitive is often an improvement … cannot be disputed. boldly go where no man has gone before phrase. [37], Post-1960 authorities show a strong tendency to accept the split infinitive. Possibly this is because the absence of an inflected infinitive form made it useful to include the particle in the citation form of the verb, and in some nominal constructions in which other Germanic languages would omit it (e.g. Follett, in Modern American Usage (1966) writes: "The split infinitive has its place in good composition. [62] After stating that the ban is pointless, The Economist Style Guide now says "To see a split infinitive nevertheless annoys some readers, so try to avoid placing a modifier between "to" and the verb in an infinitive. A frequently discussed argument states that the split-infinitive prohibition is based on Latin. One of the most famous examples of a split infinitive is the Star Trek tagline: “to boldly go where no man has gone before.” The adverb ‘boldly’ splits the infinitive ‘to go’. I’d have to say invisible, since I don’t know what it is. In the 19th century, some linguistic prescriptivists sought to introduce a prescriptive rule against the split infinitive. Some modern generative analysts classify to as a "peculiar" auxiliary verb;[44] other analysts, as the infinitival subordinator.[45]. In the English language, a split infinitive or cleft infinitive is a grammatical construction in which a word or phrase is placed between the particle to and the infinitive that comprise a to-infinitive. The first of these factors is the compelling urge of man to explore and to discover, the thrust of curiosity that leads men to try to go where no one has gone before. [30] However, the issue seems not to have attracted wider public attention until Henry Alford addressed it in his Plea for the Queen's English in 1864: A correspondent states as his own usage, and defends, the insertion of an adverb between the sign of the infinitive mood and the verb. Although many writers who support the split infinitive suggest that this argument motivated the early opponents of the construction, there is little primary source evidence for this; indeed, Richard Bailey has noted that despite the lack of evidence, this theory has simply become “part of the folklore of linguistics.”[54], Present style and usage manuals deem simple split infinitives unobjectionable. Why? An infinitive is one of the many forms that a verb can take. A correspondent to the BBC on a programme about English grammar in 1983 remarked: One reason why the older generation feel so strongly about English grammar is that we were severely punished if we didn't obey the rules! However, in verse, poetic inversion for the sake of meter or of bringing a rhyme word to the end of a line often results in abnormal syntax, as with Shakespeare's split infinitive (to pitied be, cited above), in fact an inverted passive construction in which the infinitive is split by a past participle. The so-called grammatical error is known as a "split infinitive", and occurs in the phrase "to boldly go". The claim that those who dislike split infinitives are applying rules of Latin grammar to English is asserted by many authorities who accept the split infinitive. The latter phrasing would result … This phrase is in iambic pentameter (five iambs - a short followed by long syllable), with a single exception. Unfortunately, to see it broken is so annoying to so many people that you should observe it" (but added "To never split an infinitive is quite easy."). The Victorians decided that splitting an infinitive was a grammatical mistake, and some people still agree with them. The reason is that the split infinitive is not worth the time we waste on it, should be forbidden only when it is ugly, and has been used for centuries by people who speak. The term compound split infinitive is not found in these dictionaries and appears to be very recent. However it would be difficult to argue that way today, as the split infinitive has become very common. Nov 5, 2019 - Explore Rebecka Anderson's board "To boldly go where no man has gone before", followed by 106 people on Pinterest. [53], However the argument from the classical languages may be a straw man argument, as the most important critics of the split infinitive never used it. [61] This recommendation, however, is weakened in the 12th edition. It seems to me, that we ever regard the to of the infinitive as inseparable from its verb. In principle there is a consensus that language teachers should advise on usage on the basis of what is observed to be current practice in the language. This phrase is in iambic pentameter (five iambs - a short followed by long syllable), with a single exception. And, when we have already a choice between two forms of expression, "scientifically to illustrate" and "to illustrate scientifically", there seems no good reason for flying in the face of common usage. "[38] Fowler (Gowers' revised second edition, 1965) offers the following example of the consequences of refusal to split infinitives: "The greatest difficulty about assessing the economic achievements of the Soviet Union is that its spokesmen try absurdly to exaggerate them; in consequence the visitor may tend badly to underrate them" (italics added). Daniel Defoe, Benjamin Franklin, William Wordsworth, Abraham Lincoln, George Eliot, Henry James, and Willa Cather are among the writers who used them. What’s a split infinitive then? Today no linguist would accept an argument which judges the usage of one language by the grammar of another. Fowler (1926) stressed that, if a sentence is to be rewritten to remove a split infinitive, this must be done without compromising the language: It is of no avail merely to fling oneself desperately out of temptation; one must so do it that no traces of the struggle remain; that is, sentences must be thoroughly remodeled instead of having a word lifted from its original place & dumped elsewhere …[65], In some cases, moving the adverbial creates an ungrammatical sentence or changes the meaning. A split infinitive is when other words creep into the middle of an English infinitive. It would seem to agree that the adverb boldly is correc… Do say: “I’ve become increasingly disinterested in this subject.”, Don’t say: “No you haven’t! Very frequently, this is an emphatic adverb, for example: Sometimes it is a negation, as in the self-referential joke: However, in modern colloquial English, almost any adverb may be found in this syntactic position, especially when the adverb and the verb form a close syntactic unit (really-pull, not-split). A split infinitive is when other words creep into the middle of an English infinitive. [49][50][51], The argument implies an adherence to the humanist idea of the greater purity of the classics,[52] which, particularly in Renaissance times, led people to regard as inferior aspects of English that differed from Latin. "[60] Still more strongly, older editions of The Economist Style Guide said, "Happy the man who has never been told that it is wrong to split an infinitive: the ban is pointless. A special case is the splitting of an infinitive by the negation in sentences like. Henry Alford, in his Plea for the Queen's English in 1864 went further, stating that use of the "split infinitive" was "a practice entirely unknown to English speakers and writers". About “Star Trek Opening” (Unreviewed) monolauge "Star Trek Opening" Track Info. The "to" infinitive was not split in Old or Early Middle English. Valiant relays a tale of terror--a magnetic storm at the edge of … to know her is to love her). These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. [11] In corpora of contemporary spoken English, some adverbs such as always and completely appear more often in the split position than the unsplit.[14]. [11][12] No reason for the near disappearance of the split infinitive is known; in particular, no prohibition is recorded.[5]. R. L. Trask uses this example:[66]. What does boldly go where no man has gone before expression mean? [24][25][26], Possibly the earliest comment against split infinitives was by the American John Comly in 1803.[18]. In the modern language, splitting usually involves a single adverb coming between the verb and its marker. Some sentences, they write, "are weakened by … cumbersome splitting", but in other sentences "an infinitive may be split by a one-word modifier that would be awkward in any other position".[41]. You may also … [39] Bernstein (1985) argues that, although infinitives should not always be split, they should be split where doing so improves the sentence: "The natural position for a modifier is before the word it modifies. They usually are, but counter-examples are easily found, such as an adverb splitting a two-word finite verb ("will not do", "has not done"). In Middle English, the bare infinitive and the gerund coalesced into the same form ending in -(e)n (e.g. Those grammarians … 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.” ... Rules of grammar were taken seriously, … [18][19] The now rare cleft infinitive is almost as old, attested from 1893. The first known example of a split infinitive in English, in which a pronoun rather than an adverb splits the infinitive, is in Layamon's Brut (early 13th century): This may be a poetic inversion for the sake of meter, and therefore says little about whether Layamon would have felt the construction to be syntactically natural. [58], Nevertheless, many teachers of English still admonish students against using split infinitives in writing. That’s a question I can’t answer. When the starship Enterprise set off on its five-year voyage in 1964 (or the 23rd century, but who's counting?) The opening sequence of the Star Trek television series contains a well-known example, where William Shatner says "to boldly go where no man has gone before"; the adverb boldly is said to split the to-infinitive phrase, to go. Nagle takes his historical data from, Some have suggested that another sentence in Shakespeare, from. For instance, you may have heard that in correct grammar, you should not split infinitives (the basic form of a verb such as to be). In German and Dutch, this marker (zu and te respectively) sometimes precedes the infinitive, but is not regarded as part of it. … With William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Gary Lockwood, Sally Kellerman. [31][32], Others followed, among them Bache, 1869 ("The to of the infinitive mood is inseparable from the verb");[33] William B. Hodgson, 1889; and Raub, 1897 ("The sign to must not be separated from the remaining part of the infinitive by an intervening word").[34]. Then there is the question of what was the purpose. They persuaded 672 people to record 1,000 hours of conversations using their smartphones. The latter phrasing would result … And correcting other people’s means: “I prefer being right to being kind.” Exactly. Others might not even be … A second argument is summed up by Alford's statement "It seems to me that we ever regard the to of the infinitive as inseparable from its verb. "[11] The assertion is also made in the Oxford Guide to Plain English,[46] Compact Oxford English Dictionary,[47] and Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct,[48] among others. Examples include "We pray you to proceed/ And justly and religiously unfold..." (Shakespeare, Henry V, Act II, scene 9) and "...she is determined to be independent, and not live with aunt Pullet" (George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, volume VI, chapter I).[17]. Now, researchers says, there is good reason to consign the rule to history, Last modified on Tue 19 Jun 2018 12.19 BST. The Victorians … Some argue that the two forms have different meanings, while others see a grammatical difference,[14] but most speakers do not make such a distinction. [43], However, the two-part infinitive is disputed, and some linguists say that the infinitive in English is a single-word verb form, which may or may not be preceded by the particle to. "[42] The usage writer John Opdycke based a similar argument on the closest French, German, and Latin translations. Here, the adverb "boldly" splits the full infinitive "to go". Examples in the poems of Robert Burns attest its presence also in 18th-century Scots: In colloquial speech the construction came to enjoy widespread use. But surely this is a practice entirely unknown to English speakers and writers. Nov 16, 2020 #1 [20] "Splitting the infinitive" is slightly older, back to 1887. Besides, even if the concept of the full infinitive is accepted, it does not necessarily follow that any two words that belong together grammatically need be adjacent to each other. To boldly go where no man has gone before. Gerunds were formed using to followed by a verbal noun in the dative case, which ended in -anne or -enne (e.g. But surely split infinitives don’t stop being mistakes just because more people use them? Written By Gene Roddenberry & Alexander Courage. While most authorities accept split infinitives in general, it is not hard to construct an example which any native speaker would reject. As well as varying according to register, tolerance of split infinitives varies according to type. Traditional grammarians have suggested that the construction appeared because people frequently place adverbs before finite verbs. If I say, “It is nice to know more than you” then “to know” is the infinitive of the verb know. An early proposed rule proscribing the split infinitive, which was expressed by an anonymous author in the New-England Magazine in 1834, was based on the purported observation that it was a feature of a form of English commonly used by uneducated persons but not by "good authors". An infinitive in Latin or Greek is never used with a marker equivalent to English to, and a Latin infinitive cannot be split. To boldly go where no man has gone before. To BOLD-ly GO where NO MAN has GONE be-FORE. However, no such reservation applies to the following prose example from John Wycliffe (14th century), who often split infinitives:[6], After its rise in Middle English, the construction became rare in the 15th and 16th centuries. [9] The uncontroversial example appears to be a syntactical inversion for the sake of meter:[10], Edmund Spenser, John Dryden, Alexander Pope, and the King James Version of the Bible used none, and they are very rare in the writing of Samuel Johnson. "[40] Heffernan and Lincoln, in their modern English composition textbook, agree with the above authors. One split infinitive, one whack; two split infinitives, two whacks; and so on.[36]. In Old English, infinitives were single words ending in -n or -an (comparable to modern Dutch and German -n, -en). Highly logical, captain: Star Trek’s ‘to boldly go’ is the most famous example of the split infinitive. How on earth can they tell? The game isn't over till it's over. comen "come"; to comen "to come"). This line reinvigorated the last-lasting debate over split infinitives. It is this :—The particle, TO, which comes before the verb in the infinitive mode, must not be separated from it by the intervention of an adverb or any other word or phrase; but the adverb should immediately precede the particle, or immediately follow the verb.[28]. In language, that’s exactly what happens, because the meaning of words keeps changing. It should be used when it is expressive and well led up to. [13] Thus the natural position for an adverb modifying an infinitive should be just … after the to" (italics added). The last part of "to boldly go where no man/one has gone before" is used a couple of times by characters within the universe. The most famous example is Star Trek’s “to boldly go where no one has gone before”. One example is in the American Heritage Book of English Usage: "The only rationale for condemning the construction is based on a false analogy with Latin. tō cumenne = "coming, to come").[3]. [57] Merriam–Webster's Dictionary of English Usage says: "the objection to the split infinitive has never had a rational basis". They’ve gathered the Spoken British National Corpus, which they say is the largest ever public collection of transcribed British conversations. The split infinitive is sometimes more dramatic and poetic than other constructions. Wycliff's Middle English compound split would, if transferred to modern English, be regarded by most people as un-English: Attempts to define the boundaries of normality are controversial. An adverb should not be placed between the verb of the infinitive mood and the preposition to, which governs it; as Patiently to wait—not To patiently wait. These are infinitives that have an adverb … The construction still renders disagreement, but modern English usage guides have dropped the objection to it. Maybe 100 years ago splitting an infinitive meant, “I don’t know my grammar rules”, because they were usually avoided by people who did. ericy. ... Before Covid, we have driven down to Chincoteague to view a launch from up close. I have objected, passionately, to Star Trek’s ” … to boldly go where no man has gone before… The flight recorder of the 200-year-old U.S.S. For example by Captain Kirk at the end of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country … Objections to the split infinitive fall into three categories, of which only the first is accorded any credence by linguists. ", Principal objections to the split infinitive, Nagle (1994). [28] "—Bryson (1990), p. 144. In the English language, a split infinitive or cleft infinitive is a grammatical construction in which a word or phrase is placed between the particle to and the infinitive that comprise a to-infinitive. As one who used "infinitive" to mean the single-word verb, Otto Jespersen challenged the epithet: "'To' is no more an essential part of an infinitive than the definite article is an essential part of a nominative, and no one would think of calling 'the good man' a split nominative. In 1996, the usage panel of The American Heritage Book was evenly divided for and against such sentences as, but more than three-quarters of the panel rejected, Here the problem appears to be the breaking up of the verbal phrase to be seeking a plan to relieve: a segment of the head verbal phrase is so far removed from the remainder that the listener or reader must expend greater effort to understand the sentence. [59] R. W. Burchfield's revision of Fowler's Modern English Usage goes farther (quoting Burchfield's own 1981 book The Spoken Word): "Avoid splitting infinitives whenever possible, but do not suffer undue remorse if a split infinitive is unavoidable for the completion of a sentence already begun. For instance, the rhetorician John Duncan Quackenbos said, "To have is as much one thing, and as inseparable by modifiers, as the original form habban, or the Latin habere. [2] Some linguists disagree that a to-infinitive phrase can meaningfully be called a "full infinitive" and, consequently, that an infinitive can be "split" at all. Directed by James Goldstone. However, now that most people, including language experts, are relaxed about split infinitives, that changes. [65], "When I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will stay split. The argument would be that the construction should be avoided because it is not found in the classics. The complete introductory speech, spoken by William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk at the beginning of each episode, is: How have they done that? More on Genius. But now they have been proven wrong! The most famous example is Star Trek’s “to boldly go where no one has gone before”. Nowadays most grammar guides will tell you to avoid doing this when possible, but there are times when it's okay. [57] Likewise, the Oxford Dictionaries do not regard the split infinitive as ungrammatical, but on balance consider it likely to produce a weak style and advise against its use for formal correspondence. Here traditional idiom, placing the negation before the marker (I soon learned not to provoke her) or with verbs of desire, negating the finite verb (I don't want to see you anymore) remains easy and natural, and is still overwhelmingly the more common construction. The concept of a two-word infinitive can reinforce an intuitive sense that the two words belong together. Because the prohibition has become so widely known, the Columbia Guide recommends that writers "follow the conservative path [of avoiding split infinitives when they are not necessary], especially when you're uncertain of your readers' expectations and sensitivities in this matter". This terminology implies analysing the full infinitive as a two-word infinitive, which not all grammarians accept. Although it is difficult to say why the construction developed in Middle English, or why it revived so powerfully in Modern English, a number of theories have been postulated. not surprisingly perhaps, because here there is no other place to put the words more than without substantially recasting the sentence. OK. John Donne used them several times, though, and Samuel Pepys also used at least one. But if moving the modifier would ruin the rhythm, change the meaning or even just put the emphasis in the wrong place, splitting the infinitive is the best option."[63]. 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A `` split infinitive is often an improvement … can not be disputed German -n, -en.. Grammarians, by the same author words ending in -n or -an ( comparable to modern Dutch German. There was frequent skirmishing between the verb and its marker decided that splitting an infinitive should used... Have suggested that another sentence in Shakespeare, from compound split infinitive of … Definition of boldly where! Its verb meaning of words keeps changing would accept an argument which judges usage... The defence by some grammarians, by the negation in sentences like but modern English guides!, many teachers of English still admonish students against using split infinitives varies According to split... Infinitive `` to come '' ; to comen `` to come ''.. Agrees that it is all I have become uninterested. ”, Steven Pinker 10. Is to boldly go where no man has gone before in the 12th edition without substantially recasting the sentence writing. 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