#split infinitive

Where do you stand on split infinitives?

To hear some sticklers talk, you’d think that somewhere, in a classified location, there’s a top-secret grammar law library that houses the voluminous Grammar Penal Code: an official list of all the things you’d be “wrong” to do. It’s wrong to split an infinitive, some say. It’s wrong to end a sentence with a preposition. It’s wrong to begin a sentence with and. It’s wrong to use take to mean bring. Hang around these people long enough, and you see the list of no-nos is endless. Their source, conveniently, is never revealed. They know what’s wrong and they’re not telling you how they know—as if they have a copy of the Grammar Penal Code and you don’t, so you’re forever at their mercy. With every word you speak or write, you’re in danger of getting busted for breaking a rule you never knew existed. Here’s where these nitpickers get their information: someone—a teacher, a parent, a know-it-all friend—told them there’s a rule against saying a certain thing, and they believed it. It’s as if they, too, were fooled into believing there exists some list of grammar crimes that only their teacher, parent, or friend was privy to. It’s a grammar snob Ponzi scheme.

Split infinitives don't exist in English.

split infinitive : (grammar) An infinitive with one or more modifiers inserted between the to and the verb. The first episode of the original Star Trek television series aired in the United States on this day in 1966. A voiceover at the start included the phrase “to boldly go where no man has gone before”, which is often cited as an example of a split infinitive.