Split Infinitive - Current Views

Current Views

"When I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will stay split."

Present style and usage manuals deem simple split infinitives unobjectionable in many situations. For example, Curme's Grammar of the English Language (1931) says that not only is the split infinitive correct, but it "should be furthered rather than censured, for it makes for clearer expression". The Columbia Guide to Standard American English notes that the split infinitive "eliminates all possibility of ambiguity", in contrast to the "potential for confusion" in an unsplit construction. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage says, "the objection to the split infinitive has never had a rational basis." According to Mignon Fogarty, "today almost everyone agrees that it is OK to split infinitives".

Nevertheless, many teachers of English still admonish students against using split infinitives in writing. Because the prohibition has become so widely known, the Columbia Guide recommends that writers "follow the conservative path, especially when you're uncertain of your readers' expectations and sensitivities in this matter." Likewise, the Oxford Dictionaries do not regard the split infinitive as ungrammatical, but on balance consider it likely to produce a weak style and advise against its use for formal correspondence. R. W. Burchfield's revision of Fowler's Modern English Usage goes farther (quoting Burchfield's own 1981 book The Spoken Word): "Avoid splitting infinitives whenever possible, but do not suffer undue remorse if a split infinitive is unavoidable for the completion of a sentence already begun."

As well as register, tolerance of split infinitives varies according to type. While most authorities accept split infinitives in general, it is not hard to construct an example which any native speaker would reject. Interestingly, Wycliff's Middle English compound split would, if transferred to modern English, be regarded by most people as un-English:

*It was most unkind to in this manner treat their brother.

Attempts to define the boundaries of normality are controversial. In 1996, the usage panel of The American Heritage Book was evenly divided for and against such sentences as,

I expect him to completely and utterly fail

but more than three-quarters of the panel rejected

We are seeking a plan to gradually, systematically, and economically relieve the burden.

Here the problem appears to be the breaking up of the verbal phrase to be seeking a plan to relieve: a segment of the head verbal phrase is so far removed from the remainder that the listener or reader must expend greater effort to understand the sentence. By contrast, 87 percent of the panel deemed acceptable the multi-word adverbial in

We expect our output to more than double in a year

not surprisingly perhaps, because here there is no other place to put the words more than without substantially recasting the sentence.

Splitting infinitives with negations remains an area of contention:

I want to not see you anymore.

I soon learned to not provoke her.

Even those who are generally tolerant of split infinitives may draw the line at these, and in modern British English their use is rare. This appears to be because the traditional idiom, placing the negation before the marker (I soon learned not to provoke her) or with verbs of desire, negating the finite verb (I don't want to see you anymore) remains easy and natural, and is still overwhelmingly the more common construction. Some argue that the two forms have different meanings, while others see a grammatical difference.