Split Infinitives
I've never really understood what constitutes a split infinitive. What makes a phrase an 'Infinitive' and why shouldn't one split it?
Answers
'infinitive' isn't really a phrase; it's the basic form of a verb, the name of the verb if you like. For example 'to read', 'to eat', 'to play', 'to work' . Sometimes in a sentence you will use the infinitive form of a verb - eg 'I love to read', I began to play' etc. If you 'split' the infinitive, then you put another word/words between the 'to' and the other bit of the infinitive - eg 'I decided to slowly cross the road' (You've split up 'to cross'). Another example: 'I began to angrily gather my books'. (You've split up 'to gather').
01 October 2011
Now, as to why you shouldn't split an infinitive - well, I don't really know - I think it's thought to make your writing a bit clumsy. It's quite an old rule/guideline; it was around when I was at school and before! But nowadays, as with lots in English, I don't think it's such a hard and fast rule. If you want to avoid splitting infinitives, you can - eg in my example, ' I began angrily to gather my books'. But I think, personally, that there are more important things to concentrate on if you are trying to make your work accurate and 'good' - eg other grammar points, correct spellings etc.
01 October 2011
So if an Infinitive isn't a phrase but a type of word how can you split it? "Read" isn't an infinitive but "To read" is? Once you have two words surely that's a phrase not a verb?
03 October 2011
That is correct that 'read' isn't an infinitive, but 'to read' is. As I said further up, the infinitive is sort of the name of the verb. There's the verb 'to play', the verb 'to like' etc etc. The name of the verb isn't just 'read'. You use the word 'read' when you are forming the verb - eg 'I read', 'he read'. To take your other point, just because you have two words, as in 'to play', that doesn't make it a phrase. I'd say a phrase is a collection of words - eg 'crashing into a fence', 'before the test', 'broken into lots of pieces'. A phrase could sometimes be only just more than an infinitive, eg I'd say that 'to smile bravely' would be a phrase, but I'd say that just 'to smile' wouldn't be a phrase.
03 October 2011
I think to go back to your original point, the question you were wanting answered was 'Why can't you split 'to play' or 'to read' ? And really it doesn't matter if 'to read' or 'to play' is a phrase or not; you just wanted to know why you shouldn't split it. Please get back to me if you want to argue or discuss further!
03 October 2011
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