I have to admit, until the latest Star Trek movie, I wasn't really a fan; so I didn't spend too many nights awake thinking about the most famous split infinitive of our time: "These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before".
An infinitive is the word "to" and the main form of a verb: "to dance", "to eat", "to blog" (ah... if only that's all there was in life...). A split infinitive occurs when you (gasp!) split the word "to" from the main verb with another word (a la "to boldly go").
June writes "misinformed grammar snobs say that the 'to' and the other half of the verb are like Kirk's good side and his evil side: They should never be separated. Thus, the meanies argue, that little word 'boldly' comes between the inseparable 'to' and "go' - a grammatical homewrecker."
What do you need to know? That it's okay to use split infinitives and it's okay to like Star Trek, just so long as you don't overdo either.
No comments:
Post a Comment