# Is this a split infinitive? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 4, 2008, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-split-infinitive/443862 "2008-04-04T00:34:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2008, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-split-infinitive/443862/1 "2008-04-04T00:34:34Z")
This is a split infinitive: > [@Gene Roddenberry](#): > > Our mission is to boldly go where no man has gone before. But are these? They are not infinitives, but split nonetheless. Are they also considered undesirable by certain prescriptionists? We have boldly gone where no man has gone before. We will boldly go where no man has gone before. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2008, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-split-infinitive/443862/2 "2008-04-04T00:55:45Z")
I don’t believe they are. Infinitives in English are pretty much always in the form of ‘to \’. If it’s not, it’s not an infinitive. Further, note the key difference between the quoted sentence and the other two sentences. The quoted one uses ‘is’ as its main verb, while ‘go’ is the main verb in the other two. Different structures entirely. There’s more I could probably expound on, but that should be sufficient. I don’t think a prescriptivist would have a real issue with the two new sentences. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2008, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-split-infinitive/443862/3 "2008-04-04T00:57:02Z")
There are very few prescriptivists who have an issue with split infinitives – that’s an Urban Legend founded in a few comments from Latinists of the 19th Century. The major guideline is style. To unnecessarily and with an enormously long phrase not needed in that place split an infinitive is execrable style. To boldly split an infinitive is a bit of stylistics where many good writers have gone before. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2008, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-split-infinitive/443862/4 "2008-04-04T01:04:06Z")
[QUOTE=Polycarp] There are very few prescriptivists who have an issue with split infinitives – that’s an Urban Legend founded in a few comments from Latinists of the 19th Century. [/QUOTE] Not so much now, no. It’s certainly not a top contender in the language gripe threads that pop up here every so often. I think it’s just been dropped as a lost cause at this point, but I remember being taught it in school. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2008, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-split-infinitive/443862/5 "2008-04-04T01:21:40Z")
It’s not so much a lost cause as sanity regained. Polycarp’s right. People–even teachers–who insist that infinitives should never be split are like people who insist on feeling _badly_; they know just enough to be dangerous, but not much more. It’s an artifact from Latin, wherein infinitives tend to be one word, not two, and are therefor unsplittable. But it’s ever been impractical in English, and only insisted upon by pedants. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2008, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-split-infinitive/443862/6 "2008-04-04T01:33:01Z")
Yeah, that rule has pretty much never been followed by the classic writers. I know it’s not wrong, but it still grates on my mind when I encounter it. Oddly, I don’t have this problem with the whole ‘beginning a sentence with a conjunction’ thing, though it’s even worse with ‘ending a sentence with a preposition’. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2008, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-split-infinitive/443862/7 "2008-04-04T01:33:20Z")
[QUOTE=Bosstone] I don’t believe they are. Infinitives in English are pretty much always in the form of ‘to \’. If it’s not, it’s not an infinitive. [/QUOTE] Well, there are some instances of “bare infinitives” in English, as well. In particular, the “go” in “We will boldly go” would be a bare infinitive (compare “We will boldly be”; the verb in that position is non-finite and in “plain form”). So his second sentence does indeed use an infinitive, though it doesn’t split it (the infinitive being only one word to begin with). ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2008, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-split-infinitive/443862/8 "2008-04-04T02:39:51Z")
Thanks, **Indistinguishable**. The infinitive’s always seemed to be a fairly inconsequential aspect of English grammar, so I never made an effort to learn more about it other than it usually begins with to. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2008, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-split-infinitive/443862/9 "2008-04-04T03:05:03Z")
“We will boldly go” is not an infinitive; it’s future tense. If you want to be hopelessly pedantic, the verb in the English future tense is the zero form of the infinitive (to be even more pedantic, English has no future tense). But the construction is not considered an infinitive. The infinitive always has “to” as part of it; it’s jsut that some verb forms use the zero form infinitive (for instance, the subjunctive: If this be treason . . . .") ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2008, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-split-infinitive/443862/10 "2008-04-04T04:37:09Z")
I didn’t mean to imply that the construction as a whole was an infinitive; just that the particular word “go” within it was an infinitive. (On which you seem to agree) Incidentally, I’m not sure what you mean when you say the infinitive always has “to” as part of it, and then, in the next sentence, speak of zero form infinitives without “to”. Could you clarify? ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2008, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-split-infinitive/443862/11 "2008-04-04T05:34:16Z")
Coincidently (or perhaps the inspiration for the OP), here is [a list](http://listverse.com/literature/top-10-errors-in-english-that-arent-errors/) done up today. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2008, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-split-infinitive/443862/12 "2008-04-04T13:56:36Z")
[QUOTE=RealityChuck] The infinitive always has “to” as part of it; [/quote] You ought not say that. > [@](#): > > it’s jsut that some verb forms use the zero form infinitive (for instance, the subjunctive: If this be treason . . . .") Um, the subjunctive is completely separate from the infinitive. If what you mean is that the relatively rare present subjunctive **usually** uses the same form as the ‘zero form infinitive’-- i.e., what is left when you strip away the initial ‘to’ from an infinitive – well, _an thou sayest that, thou wouldst not be wrong._ But, as my obsolescent and contrived sentence shows, the ‘thou’ forms, old and rare as they are, don’t conform to that rule. The only verb with person/number changes in the past tense, _to be,_ dpesn’t fit the rule. The far commoner past subjunctive simply laughs at the rule, and normally uses a form indistinguishable from the past indicative. ---
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2008, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-split-infinitive/443862/13 "2008-04-04T15:29:49Z")
I think it’s worthwhile to define what an infinitive is without respect to its form in any given language. My understanding is it is a substantive derived from a verb that expresses the potential or abstract action of that verb without regard to a specific person or number (potential/abstract serving to distinguish it slightly from the other verbal noun the gerund, although in several cases one can be substituted for the other without a change in meaning). Like a verb it can take a direct object. Under this definition, the “say” in **Polycarp** ’s “you ought not say that” is an infinitive, despite the lack of a “to”. My guess is that the infinitive concept varies enough between languages that some may, e.g., allow voice and tense while others don’t (Latin certainly has different infinitives for different voices and tenses; I’m not sure English does). There may even be languages that don’t have an infinitive form. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2008, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-split-infinitive/443862/14 "2008-04-04T16:26:58Z")
[QUOTE=Saint Cad] Coincidently (or perhaps the inspiration for the OP), here is [a list](http://listverse.com/literature/top-10-errors-in-english-that-arent-errors/) done up today. [/QUOTE] Thank you, **Saint Cad**. That was useful and entertaining. Here is my new protest sign: Split infinitives not hairs! ---
**Author:** ![Epiplexed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c2a13f/32.png) [@Epiplexed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epiplexed)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2008, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-split-infinitive/443862/15 "2008-04-04T17:15:31Z")
Some grammarians tend to use the term “base form” to refer to what others will call a “bare infinitive” – that is, you _can_ find texts that treat the “go” of “will go” as something other than an infinitive; the infinitive is (in that tradition) considered to be “to + base form.” Few linguists use that approach, but it’s alive and well in a bunch of K-12 materials. There’s a problem in using terms like “infinitive” to refer to forms in different languages – linguists end up doing that out of practical necessity (you can’t make up a new term for _everything_) but it can lead to thinking that there’s some “real” commonality between two forms when in fact the connection is only that you’ve chosen to use the same label for them. English infinitives and Latin infinitives aren’t _really_ the same forms; they’re just similar enough to make using the same label for them convenient. And the minute you try to define an infinitive semantically, you run into trouble – any definition loose enough to deal with forms in multiple languages will probably also include forms in those languages that you _don’t_ want to call infinitives (abstract nouns like “creation,” for example). [QUOTE=CJJ\*] I think it’s worthwhile to define what an infinitive is without respect to its form in any given language. My understanding is it is a substantive derived from a verb that expresses the potential or abstract action of that verb without regard to a specific person or number (potential/abstract serving to distinguish it slightly from the other verbal noun the gerund, although in several cases one can be substituted for the other without a change in meaning). Like a verb it can take a direct object. Under this definition, the “say” in **Polycarp** ’s “you ought not say that” is an infinitive, despite the lack of a “to”. My guess is that the infinitive concept varies enough between languages that some may, e.g., allow voice and tense while others don’t (Latin certainly has different infinitives for different voices and tenses; I’m not sure English does). There may even be languages that don’t have an infinitive form. [/QUOTE]