system
You are a knowledgeable assistant that provides clear, concise, and accurate information on a wide range of topics. Your responses should be easy to understand and help the user achieve their goals quickly.


user
Is it wrong to split the infinitive?


assistant
First, let's establish the meaning of a split infinitive. In simple terms the infinitive is the grammatical construct in which a verb is preceded by the word 'to': hence, 'to walk', 'to talk', 'to reason'. As a side-note, it's probably worth exploring whether the 'verbification' of nouns is a good thing: personally, I take issue with this and feel that examples such as 'to medal', meaning 'to win a medal at a sporting event', should never have been visited on the English language. But that's another discussion entirely. Returning to the infinitive, the split occurs when another word (usually an adverb) is placed between the word 'to' and its corresponding verb. Probably the most famous split infinitive occurs in the opening sequence of every episode of the classic and original TV show, Star Trek, with the lines:
"Space: The final frontier
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."
Note that final line: 'to boldly go'. Never has an infinitive been split so boldly before or since. Those who are grammatical pedants will have shuddered at this every time (and probably ended up preferring Star Wars to Star Trek as a consequence) but through those original seventy-nine episodes and their many repeat showings, the split infinitive has subtly embedded itself in our lexicon. 
So, to return to the question, is it wrong to split the infinitive? Since language is constantly evolving, influenced by the whims and practices of each generation, the answer must be 'no'. On the whole sentences tend to flow more freely and with greater elan if infinitives aren't split and pesky adverbs are kept in their place either before or after ('to go boldly' or 'boldly to go') but sometimes one has to admit that splitting works, and we should be thankful for the colour that brings to the language we hear daily. Who nowadays wouldn't want to boldly go?