# Why Aren't You Supposed to 'Split' Your Infinitives? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 20, 2005, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-supposed-to-split-your-infinitives/313357 "2005-07-20T21:54:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-supposed-to-split-your-infinitives/313357/41 "2005-07-22T19:07:21Z")
> [@Jinx](#): > > How could the split infinitive rule have originated with Latin if, as you say, infinitives were one word, anyhow? That just doesn’t make any sense. It must have started with older English, and it stuck. But did it stick? Was it ever really a rule? _The Chicago Manual of Style_ doesn’t see anything wrong with splitting infinitives. Even stodgy Strunk & White say, in _The Elements of Style_: > [@](#): > > There is precedent from the fourteenth 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. That may sound like a “don’t split infinitives” rule, but later in the book it says [QUOTE] The split infinitive is another trick of rhetoric in which the ear must be quicker than the handbook. Some infinitives seem to improve on being split… [QUOTE] Overall, this “rule” has been routinely violated for at least half a millenium, and scorned by many grammarians and writers. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-supposed-to-split-your-infinitives/313357/42 "2005-07-22T21:16:52Z")
Quoth **pulykamell** : > [@](#): > > “Nie” and “nic” are not like the “ne…pas” construction in French, which you’re probably confusing it with. You are correct. Usually when I’ve heard this argument (or one similar) brought forth before, the example has been “ne…pas”. I have only a marginal grasp of French (took it for a couple years in junior high), but enough to know that the ne…pas construction is a single unit, even though there are words in between. But I know no Polish at all, so I was assuming (incorrectly, it seems) that the construction there worked the same way as in French. As for “man”, the opening monologue of _Star Trek_ is itself a cite that “man” is still used in its gender-exclusive sense today. If one is to argue political correctness, then the revised version “…where no **one** has gone before” is far worse, since every episode, wherever they go, they find that someone else has in fact gone there before. It’s just plain incorrect. On the other hand, even if one insists upon interpreting “man” to mean “male human” (against the obvious intention of the authors), the original form is still factually correct: If no human has ever gone to a particular place, that then implies that no male human has, either. To be both factually and politically correct, it should perhaps be phrased “…where no human has gone before”, but that doesn’t scan as well, and there’s an awful lot you can justify in the name of poetic license. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2005, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-supposed-to-split-your-infinitives/313357/43 "2005-07-23T08:07:59Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Usually when I’ve heard this argument (or one similar) brought forth before, the example has been “ne…pas”. I have only a marginal grasp of French (took it for a couple years in junior high), but enough to know that the ne…pas construction is a single unit, even though there are words in between. Although it is commonly stated that _ne_ plus one of the negative particles _pas, aucun, personne, rien,_ etc., is a single unit, in fact this is simply a case of a double negative being the preferred form. Both _ne_ and the particles are inherently negative by themselves, as you can see in various constructions where they can be used by themselves. If you use _ne_ by itself, as “Je n’ose dire…” (“I dare not say…”), a slightly poetic or formal construction, it is still negative. Likewise, if you say _un homme connu par personne,_ you are using the particle “personne” without the “ne” but it still has negative value. Moreover, the particles are distinguished from their roots in a variety of ways; even though historically _Je n’ai vu personne_ did indeed literally mean “I did-not see (a) person” – just as you could say _Je n’ai dit mot_ – it can now be distinguished by the fact that the noun “personne” is feminine, but the negative particle “personne” isn’t: _personne ici n’est heureux_. Likewise, in many lects of French the pronunciation of “plus” has diverged depending on whether it’s negative or positive: in Quebec, _il n’y en a plus_ [plœs] is “there is more”; _il n’y en a plus_ [py] is “there is none.” ---
**Author:** ![Gymnopithys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/fbc32d/32.png) [@Gymnopithys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gymnopithys)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2005, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-supposed-to-split-your-infinitives/313357/44 "2005-07-23T09:37:52Z")
ye don’ know no nuthin. :rolleyes: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-you-supposed-to-split-your-infinitives/313357.md?page=2)