Giving examples/splitting infinitives

If I tell you that there is a debate over whether to split infinitives in writing you know what I mean, right?

Because most people don’t.

Worse, many think that they probably should know, and because they don’t, that people think they’re stupid. At that point they leave. No one wants to be made to feel stupid.

So what if I tell you that an infinitive is the basic form of a verb, usually preceded by the preposition ‘to’? And that putting another word, such as an adverb, between the preposition and the rest of the verb is what we mean by splitting?

Still feel stupid? I don’t blame you.

Try this. Here is a split infinitive:

To boldly go where no man has gone before.

And here is the same infinitive, not split:

To go boldly where no man has gone before.

There’s an old, some would say outdated rule of grammar suggesting that to keep our grammar pure we should never split infinitives. Lots of people more recently say it doesn’t matter any more.

You understood that, right?

Examples are supremely helpful for understanding how language works

My point is not about infinitives. It’s about the fact that, especially with language, examples help people to understand far more than explaining the concepts in a paragraph. Right and wrong, before and after, simple examples can help your readers to grasp concepts the language for which is technical and misunderstood.

It takes more work to create examples, but even the simplest examples put side by side aid your readers’ understanding while helping you to ensure that you actually know what you’re talking about. So everyone wins.

Go on then, tell us about infinitives

As for the splitting infinitives debate, I like to write as credibly as I can. So, given an equal sounding result, I would choose to observe the rule not to split infinitives. Instead of writing:

She listened intently to completely grasp what he was saying.

– I could observe the rule and have:

She listened intently to grasp completely what he was saying.

However the rule is not sacred in the slightest, some would say is irrelevant in English and at times creates clumsy sentences. This often used example:

We expect our output to more than double in a year.

– sounds strange if the infinitive is not split:

We expect our output more than to double in a year.

Defenders of the rule would say that I should rephrase the sentence:

We expect our output to increase by more than double in a year.

– but then I’ve lost some of the punch of the shorter first version. And online especially, punch is essential.

In short, keep the rule where you can, but don’t worry about breaking it for effect.

And always give examples.