Answer: Split Infinitives

[redatdawn]

handmademark asked, "What is a split infinitive? Why is it so bad?"

Comments

[tejas]

Isn't this a holdover from Latin where the infinitive is actually a single word?

Or am I misremembering something? :-)

[redatdawn]

...Sort of. I left out the Latin explanation because I thought it would be too complicated, but here it is:

Once upon a time someone said, "Split infinitives are bad because they never occur in Latin!"

There are two problems with this:

1. English isn't Latin. Some scholars appear to be confused about this, and they have gone on to confuse generations of English majors, not to mention everyday English speakers.

2. In Latin, the split infinitive doesn't exist because it can't. There is no separate particle "to" in the Latin infinitive. In English, split infinitives occur because it's possible to split them. This doesn't make split infinitives in English automatically okay, but it does mean the Latin-based argument is irrelevant.

[tejas]

Interesting. I don't think I've ever heard it called irrelevant. :-) Usually it's just the Latinists getting on their high horse and then the Englishists rolling their eyes and trying to ignore them. ;-)

[redatdawn]

Sorry, I didn't mean to come off so...cheekily. But it does seem to be rather irrelevant-to the English language, in which the conditions of Latin don't quite apply.

[horusguard76]

To the OP: Thank you for posting this.

I wasn't truly aware of this 'problem' but at times wondered why some sentences sounded weird to my non-native-speaker ear but I wasn't able to pinpoint it.

Thus thank you for explaining this and throwing some really interesting bit of history in as well. :)

[redatdawn]

No problem! Thank you for reading :)

[snailbones]

Another great explanation, thank you.

[redatdawn]

No problem!