Split Infinitives

Technicality Versus Practicality

Have you ever heard the term “split infinitives” before? More than likely, it was during a high school grammar lesson you promptly forgot by your next class, or if you were a good student then just after you turned in that unit’s test. As it turns out, though, you probably already know how split infinitive work simply by speaking and writing English. It is one of those rules that we naturally follow a lot of the time because it just ‘doesn’t sound right’ when we break it. Still, it can be easy to break the rule regarding split infinitives, particularly in writing, when we aren’t paying attention or, for whatever reason, it just sounds better when it’s broken. Indeed, some grammarians have even begun to assert that using split infinitives is sometimes fair game, resulting in a ‘technicality versus practicality’ schism in grammar regarding these curious cases.

First off, what exactly is a split infinitive? To answer, let’s look at what an infinitive is! Infinitives are a form of verbal, which is a form of verbs that acts a something besides a verb. Gerunds and participles are other forms of verbals. Infinitives are, simply put, the basic or ‘default’ form of a verb when it is not being used as the primary action or verb in a sentence. The definitions of verbs often see the infinitive form being used. The word “to” is usually placed in front of them, though not always. Luckily, in our case here, we only really need to worry (Hey, there’s one now!) about those with “to” in front of them, since that is what allows them to be “split.”

Here is an example of an infinitive in a sentence:
"The police officer decided to give Jeremy a ticket.”

“To give” is the infinitive form of the verb “give.” However, in this case, it is not acting as the primary verb or action in the sentence; “decided” is the main action taken by the police officer, grammatically speaking. The police officer decided something. What did he decide? To give a ticket. To whom did he give it? Jeremy. You can see how an infinitive is acting as something between a verb and a direct object, with Jeremy as the indirect object. It is what the officer decided, but it’s still acting as a verb since it is still an action taken. Not all infinitives will be used as a stand-in for a direct object, but they will always be a stand-in for a part of speech that is not a primary verb.

Now let’s see what happens when we “split the infinitive:”

“The police officer decided to unfortunately give Jeremy a ticket.”

See how that just doesn’t read quite right when we split “to” and “give” apart? This will most commonly be done with adverbs. Usually they are split in order to describe the action being taken; since adverbs are used to describe verbs you wind up with a lot of adverbs splitting infinitives. Sometimes infinitives are split with more than just a single word, but instead a whole phrase (though it is often an adverbial phrase still).

“The police officer decided to, unfortunately for the inexperienced motorist, give Jeremy a ticket.”

So how do you fix a split infinitive like these? The answer is simple: Move whatever words are splitting the infinitive to another part of the sentence! This will often be either at the beginning or end of he sentence, depending on the tone and flow of the sentence.

“The police officer decided to give Jeremy a ticket, unfortunately.”

“Unfortunately for the inexperienced motorist, the police officer decided to give Jeremy a ticket.”

There is another placement you can use, which is between the primary verb and the infinitive. This often gives off a more formal, or even sarcastic, tone; however, it is a very valid way of avoiding a split infinitive while still including an adverb in the middle of the sentence:

“The police officer decided, unfortunately, to give Jeremy a ticket.”

Now we get to the tricky part with infinitives, which is the situations where some grammarians say it is okay to split them. There is no definitive rule for this, because technically the rule is to never do it. If you realized that I just did it there, then good job! If not, don’t feel bad, because negatives are some of the most common words used to split infinitives. “Never” and “not” just love to sneak in and split up infinitives; it seems to just naturally happen in both spoken and written English.

“After seeing one too many car crashes, the police officer decided to never go easy on speeders.”

That reads and, if you read aloud, sounds just fine, doesn’t it? It doesn’t sound quite as jarring as the original split infinitive above. Technically speaking, though, this is incorrect. If you wanted to be technically correct, you would avoid splitting the infinitive just the same as before:

“After seeing one too many car crashes, the police officer decided never to go easy on speeders.”

The tricky part is that with negatives you often don’t get as many options as far as where to move them in a sentence. For example, read the sentence now with “never” placed at the end:

“After seeing one too many car crashes, the police officer decided to go easy on speeders, never.”

That just doesn’t sound right at all. You’d be better off with the split infinitive in this case. Even with the split infinitive it isn’t quite so confusing or awkward to read. This is where the practicality of split infinitives comes into play, and why some grammarians and linguists have started to assert that splits infinitives are okay to use… sometimes. Unfortunately, there is no real definitive rule for this, because it simply comes down to a matter of “Does it read and sound okay?” A lot of the time, you will wind up splitting infinitives while speaking simply because it still flows nicely and sounds more natural. Other times, splitting an infinitive will immediately make the sentence sound completely wrong.

What is the correct answer? Well, as said before, it is technically correct never to split an infinitive, the best kind of correct. Practically speaking, though, you can get away with it when you want to naturally present your thoughts. Technicality versus practicality? Personally, I quite like my technicalities but I do appreciate practicality when it gets the point across just as well. Still, you cannot argue with what is technically correct.