Dark corners of the language: the split infinitive
November 30th 2008 06:38
Take an infinitive and split it and listen to the howls. How dare you commit such a crime against the English language, they will cry. It is a common complaint and even those who don't know precisely what a split infinitive is have been heard to sneer.
What is it? For the answer to that, let us turn to Star Trek, the iconic television version which introduced every one of its episodes with a split infinitive: "Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. 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."
When a verb is preceded by to (to eat, to drink, to walk), interposing a third word is to split the infinitive. To slowly walk, for example, is to split thoroughly. If the mission of the Enterprise had been to go boldly, rather than to boldly go, its travels would have been clear of the stigma of a grammatical crime.
Right?
Well, actually, no.
To split an infinitive is not incorrect. It is disputed, at times hotly, but it is not against the rules of grammar. The venerable Henry Fowler wrote, "No other grammatical issue has so divided English speakers." He shows which side he is on, however, in his Modern English Usage, by calling the rule against splitting the infinitive a "superstition".
The definition of the term split infinitive in the 2,672-page Shorter Oxford Dictionary (Third Edition) includes no mention of illegality, but does include an example, written by no less a luminary of the language than Lord Byron: "To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell; To slowly trace the forest's shady scene."
The perception that splitting an infinitive is ungrammatical stems from the fact that to do so is often considered poor style. The classic example is, "Writers should learn to not split infinitives." The anti-split school of opinion grew quickly in England in the 19th century, a time when the practice suddenly grew in popularity. The debate continues to rage in the UK today.
In the US, the debate rages not at all. They have always - well, at least since the advent of Star Trek, been content to boldly split infinitives. This is despite the advice of Strunk and White, that great voice of authority on American English. It says on P58, "There is precedent from the 14th century down for interposing an adverb between to and the infinitive it governs, but the construction should be avoided unless the writer wishes to place unusual stress on the adverb."
In other words, sometimes advisable, often inadvisable, but never wrong.
So, next time you hear someone ridiculing the use of a split infinitive, tell them to go read Fowler or Byron or Strunk or White. Or politely suggest they try rewording the following - the population is expected to more than double in the next ten years - without splitting the infinitive.
| 109 |
| Vote |
Comments (18)
Add Comments
