The Curious Case of the Split Infinitive

We’d hazard a guess to say that the majority of native English speakers don’t know what a split infinitive is, so please don’t feel out of your depth. Instead, pop your grammatical hat on and join us as we delve into one of the English language’s oldest taboos and ask - is it really so bad to split an infinitive? 

What is a split infinitive? 

An infinitive is the ‘to’ form of a verb. For example, to walk, to talk, to jump, to eat and to sleep. A split infinitive occurs when you put a word (an adverb) between the ‘to’ and the verb itself. Probably the most famous example is Star Trek’s ‘to boldly go’, but there are plenty of others such as ‘to quickly read’, ‘to really try’ and ‘to suddenly admire’.  

These are split infinitives because the adverbs (quickly, really and suddenly) split the infinitives (to read, to try and to admire).  

Why are split infinitives a no-no? 

Some people believe that split infinitives are grammatically incorrect and that their use should be punishable by death. That’s an exaggeration, but some people do feel very strongly about this minor point of English grammar. 

It was Henry Alford in his 1864 book The Queen’s English who originally advised against splitting infinitives. He and other strict grammarians said that infinitives form a single action, thought or idea, so they should be kept together rather than split apart. You can see what they mean from the following examples: 

“Do you have to so loudly play?” 

That sentence is much clearer without the split infinitive. 

“Do you have to play so loudly?” 

It’s also a good idea to avoid splitting infinitives too widely: 

“Our ESL teachers help you to confidently and fluently converse at a high level.” 

Again, this sentence is less awkward without the split infinitive. 

“Our ESL teachers help you to converse confidently and fluently at a high level.”  

However, most grammar experts agree that split infinitives are acceptable under certain circumstances, and in some cases, they can even be preferable to awkward phrasing.   

The split infinitive fights back 

Recent research has found that split infinitives are becoming more common in British speech, and that could be reason enough to discard the rule.  

Researchers at Cambridge and Lancaster Universities persuaded 672 people to record 1,000 hours of conversations on their smartphones. They found that split infinitives are now nearly three times as common in British speech as they were in the early 1990s. And, in language, the meaning of words keeps changing over time, so split infinitives will stop being a grammatical error as more people use them.    

So there you have it, the Turtle Talk guide to how to confidently split infinitives.