Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An infinitive verb form with an element, usually an adverb, interposed between to and the verb form, as in to boldly go.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- (Gram.) A simple infinitive with to, having a modifier between the verb and the to; as in,
to largely decrease . Called alsocleft infinitive .
WordNet 3.0
- n. an infinitive with an adverb between `to' and the verb (e.g., `to boldly go')
Examples
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Lists
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Tweets
Looking for tweets for split infinitive.
fbharjo Clearly, the important thing is to stop answering! Jan 9, 2013
ruzuzu I could see that poster hanging in an interrogation room somewhere. Jan 9, 2013
fbharjo Can one 'meekly stop'? Apricots are precociously bold! Freeze, rot or not! Is not that soitenly (amen is certainly an adverb!) clear?! Give me a break ((not) brake)! Let's Non-dualistically split??? Iroquoisyly???
Silly, is-it-not? Jan 9, 2013
bilby I would understand that poster the same way. I don't think it's clear in what it's really getting at.
The important thing, I've discovered, is fresh apricots from the farmers' market. Jan 9, 2013
pterodactyl There's a poster in my workplace that says "The important thing is not to stop questioning". I agree with the sentiment, but the grammar drives me crazy. My brain parses it as "X is not Y", or "(The important thing) is not (to stop questioning)", and so every time I see it, I think "Well, then what is the important thing? Tell me! Don't leave me in suspense, you wretched poster!"
This is why it's important to give people the freedom to split infinitives. Using a split infinitive, you can reword the sentence as "The important thing is to not stop questioning", which is nice and tidy and clear. Jan 9, 2013