Talk:Split infinitive

message: # The last “sentence” of the first paragraph (which uses “to more than double” to prove that more than one word can split the infinitive) is not a sentence.
# In that same paragraph, I think that “in which William Shatner” would be more appropriate than the current “where…”.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sbauman (talk • contribs) 20:11, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Non-sentence

message: In the "descriptivist objection" section there is this sentence: "Thus the descriptivist objection involves a person whose idiolect does not have the construction advising against its use on the grounds that it is not the norm. "  It has three negatives and is not clear.  I think someone who knows what it is trying to say should re-work it.  I have had no luck unraveling it and am not an expert.  Also, idiolect could be linked to its wikipedia page.    —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.208.4.10 (talk) 12:38, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Unclear Language

message: Timwi has just added the "spoken version" tag which was removed last year.  The reason it was removed was that the article has been completely rewritten, and the old text found in the spoken version is not to be recommended.  Obviously it would be best to re-record this, but that is a big job for someone, and should probably wait until the article gets GA status, i.e. until we are sure we are not about to make more substantial changes.  Meanwhile, is it best to leave this tag, or leave it with a warning of some sort, or just delete it again? --Doric Loon 14:29, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Spoken version

message: About the sentence: "In any case, Moriarty is clearly in error when she dates the prohibition to a time when Latin was regarded as the only scholarly language - this was not the case in 1834."  What wasn't the case -- that Latin was regarded as the only scholarly language, or that the prohibition against splitting infinitives was in effect?  Moreover, if this author mangles basic facts about the history of split infinitives is this something important enough to be quoting and dissecting within the article? Just my two bits. Daniel Freeman 13:15, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hard to say what she was thinking.  Either she thought the controversy was centuries older than it actually is (I suspect that is the case) or she thought Latin was the sole scholarly language much longer than it was.  English became regarded as a serious scholarly language in the 16th or 17th century, but was beginning to be used for serious writing quite a bit earlier than that.  The split infinitive controversy only began in the 19th century, so she is clearly wrong to see it in that context.  I agree that she is hardly a significant writer, and possibly the quote should be replaced with another one.  --Doric Loon 15:13, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As I recall, the purpose of the quotation is to show specifically what real people believed the argument from Latin was, as some editors here doubted anyone could think anything so absurd.  I would certainly rather see a quotation from someone more famous and more knowledgeable about the split infinitive.  And I wouldn't miss the "clearly" in error sentence if people believe it's beating a dead horse.  —JerryFriedman 04:30, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Moriarty

message: Would the following be regarded as a split infinive? And if not, then what?
:"Are you going to talk?"
:"Yes, I'm going to"
Since the second person has omitted "talk" from the end of his answer, which would otherwise leave "to talk" there.
:No, this is not a split infinitive.  It is just a shortened form of a construction which I suspect is uniquely English. A similar situation with finite verbs is:
::Does he talk much?
::Yes, he does.  (="does talk much")
:Most languages have situations where a word which strictly is necessary for a construction to be complete may be dropped because it is obvious what is meant, and these echo situations, where the first speaker already used the word which the second speaker can then assume, are typical examples.  But I can't think that any other language leaves the infinitive marker in stressed position while dropping the infinitive itself. --Doric Loon (talk) 07:01, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Can you find a source for that?  It is very interesting, and if any linguist has taken that view in a citable work I would say we should include it in the section on origins of the construction - it shows that the role of "to" has changed over time.  But it may also be that the future tense is a special case.  Would it also work that way with "decided to"?  I am more sceptical there.  --Doric Loon (talk) 07:03, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  The standard analysis in generative grammar (both transformational and otherwise) is to analyze to as an auxiliary verb. (See, e.g., Syntax: A Formal Introduction 2003 by Ivan A. Sag, Thomas Wasow and Emily Bender). Thus He decided to, She never told me anyone was able to, etc., are examples of "verb phrase ellipsis," just like she can, no one will, and so on. But this does not necessarily diagnose the connectedness of going to vs to talk, but simply that talk is a unit. --rikdzin (talk) 23:14, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: More interesting stuff.  My knowledge of linguists' ideas on syntax is both meager and obsolete.    I imagine they have some explanation for why can, will, etc. never appear in a situation where to can appear, and (to get to the topic of the article) why not appears after the auxiliary in she will not but almost always before in she decided not to.  Anyway, I think this analysis should be cited in the article, and I'll do a little based on the snippet at Google Books. If there's a succinct way to say how they account for the rarity of the "to ADVERB VERB" construction at some times in the past, the continued rarity of that construction with not etc., and the avoidance of it by some present speakers (you know who you are), that would be great to add, but I can't do it. —JerryFriedman  (Talk) 22:33, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Incidentally, a problem I've run into on other subjects: if we want to claim that this is the standard generative analysis, how do we substantiate that? —JerryFriedman  (Talk) 22:48, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes: the main difference between to and and the rest is captured (again, in some modern theories) in terms of finiteness. As to the goodness of she decided not to but he badness of she decided to not, I'm not sure what people in general say. I know of one account in HPSG by Ivan Sag, but the technicalities would probably be inappropriate for an article on the history and usage of the split infinitive. As to determining the standardness of a parcticular analysis: any number of introductory textbooks may be cited, or technical articles. However, they may not all agree on terminology. E.g., one group of articles may call to an auxiliary verb, while the others say it is a inflectional head. These are actually essentially equivalent, but to the uninitiated might seem rather different. -rikdzin (talk) 20:59, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

text: I actually didn't mean to imply that any particular modern analysis of infinitival to belongs in an article on the split infinitive at all, though perhaps it might. I can look around for suitable references if it's useful (see also my reply above to JerryFriedman). -rikdzin (talk) 20:59, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe modern analyses belong at Infinitive (where the auxiliary-verb theory is notably missing).  Maybe what this article needs is simply a statement that both analyses and terminology have varied a great deal over the years and we're simply talking about a phenomenon and the history and current state of prescriptions concerning it.  (I can't think that hard at the moment, though.)  However, I think theories that account for the history of the split infinitive or the present avoidance of it by some, particularly in some cases, are great to mention here with a source for the interested reader. —JerryFriedman  (Talk) 00:07, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: A question

message: Amusing passage on split infinitives by Arnold Bennett here.  I don't know whether it should go in the article. —JerryFriedman  (Talk) 01:57, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "A cardinal sin" 

message: Split infinitives are to be avoided when Latin infinitives are translated into English.
Removed because I think the person who said it may be joking.
Latin also tended to put adverbs in front of verbs rather than after them.  In the split infinitive, the adverb always comes before the verb.
Removed because the relevance is unclear.  In particular, the anti-splitting theorists saw (or even still see) the adverb as going before only part of the verb.
As it is discussed above, a split infinitive such as "to quickly find" may reflect a natural word order such as "I quickly found it."
Removed as unneeded repetition. —JerryFriedman  (Talk) 23:58, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed text 

message: I removed the last sentence of the lead, though it's been there a long time:
:It can be used for intentional effect, as a form of hyperbaton (as discussed below), and has been employed to good effect by some major poets (see below).
We don't have any source or example for the hyperbaton statement.  Also, I think that's a really minor issue.  Most of us who use split infinitives do so without thinking about it (a statement I believe and we do have a source for); it's just the natural word order for us.  By the same token, we would seldom notice a split infinitive as an intentional rhetorical effect. If we do want the use as hyperbaton in the article, I don't think it's important enough to go in the lead.
Likewise I don't see that the use in poetry is particularly important.  We do need the example from Shakespeare and the one from Burns, but I don't think the Shakespeare one is necessarily "to good effect".  Anyway, much though I like poetry, I'd say it's outside the mainstream of usage, so it doesn't belong in the lead.
If anyone puts either part of that sentence back in, I think there may be some better place. —JerryFriedman  (Talk) 02:37, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  More removed text 

message: The article makes clear —apropos the "Latin" argument— that in English the infinitive is two words, not one.  That is, it might seem improper to split the English verb to love; but in Latin, it is impossible to split the verb amare.  According to some, one may not split infinitives in English, whereas in the Romance languages the infinitive cannot be split, it is indivisible.
What the article makes no mention of, however, is the remarkable simplicity of English verbs vis-a-vis verbs in the Romance languages —and why this necessitates the preposition "to" in the infinitive. 
Except for to be and to wit, each verb in the English language has only 4 or 5 inflections.  In the Romance languages, by contrast, a verb can have as many as 47. For instance:
English to love	Present Indicative/Present Subjunctive/Imperative, love     	Present Indicative (3rd Person singular), loves                  	Past Indicative/Past Subjunctive/Past Participle, loved                 	Present Participle, loving                                                	                                                                                  	                                                            	                                                                           	                                            	                          	
Spanish amar   	Present Indicative, amo - amas - ama - amamos - amais - aman	Past Indicative,  amé - amaste - amo - amamos - amasteis - amaron	Future Indicative, amaré - amarás - amarán - amarémos - amaréis - amarán	Imperfect Indicative, amaba - amabas - amaba - amabamos -amasteis - amaban	Conditional Indicative, amaría - amarías - amaría - amaríamos - amaríais - amarían	Present Subjunctive, ame - ames - ame - amemos -améis - amen	Imperfect Subjunctive, amara - amaras - amara - amaramos - amarais - amaran	Imperative, ama - ame - amemos - amad - amen	Present Participle, amando	Past Participle, amado
Notice that while (in Spanish) the infinitive is distinct from all the other tenses, in English it performs several different duties.  Unless written with the preposition "to", the infinitive in English creates ambiguity as to whether it forms a clause or an infinitive phrase.  This might raise issues of punctuation, flow, and even sentence fragmentation.
I suggest that the article make note of this, since a split infinitive can give the false impression that it is the present tense in a clause and not the main verb in a phrase.  What do you think?Pine (talk) 23:28, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you would have to give me an example of a sentence where a split infinitive is ambiguous in the way you suggest. Also, I haven't seen this in the literature, so is it OR?  --Doric Loon (talk) 23:49, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree.  Also, some infinitives in English don't have "to", such as "I saw him do it.  If there's a source for the statement that English infinitives often have "to" because of the possible confusion with other parts of the verb, that should certainly go in Infinitive, and it might be useful here too. —JerryFriedman  (Talk) 00:13, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  "To" is needed to distinguish the Infinitive from the Present Tenses. 

message: I removed this unsourced text, as it looks like original research to me:
Accuracy in negation by splitting the infinitive can be shown by this retort:
:I did not want to see her: I craved to see her.
Here, the retort revolves around whether the negation is of wanting or seeing. The poetic ambiguity collapses into confusion if you were to rephrase this as
:I wanted to not see her: I craved to see her.
In this construction, there is no ambiguity to poetically play with because the negation is only of seeing.
Note that negation can also be constructed to comply with the convention in a way that shows how sometimes not splitting the infinitive is actually required for accurate meaning: eg
:I wanted not to see her but to hear her.
This is not the same as
:I wanted to not see her but to hear her.
The desire was not "not seeing her" but simply "hearing her".
I added a citation to the previous paragraph.  The first argument—that "I did not want to see her" is ambiguous and "I wanted to not see her" isn't—makes sense to me, and I wouldn't mind a sourced version, especially one that includes "I wanted not to see her" (or something similar).  I don't follow the second point, about "I wanted not to see her but to hear her." —JerryFriedman  (Talk) 00:36, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed text on "to not want" etc. 

message: The three guides currently listed are all guides of American English. I am not a linguist, so cannot claim any expertise on the matter, however I am aware that different dialects of English have different preferences; hence the overall richness of the language as a whole.
Could someone with a better understanding of linguistics and the associated guides include the views on split infinitive in a broader scope of English speakers? For instance, what are the rules in English English?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.6.35.235 (talk) 22:47, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources for style guides 

message: I am by no means an English language expert, but it seems to me that an alternative (that isn't suggested) to using a split infinitive would be: "She decided to get rid of, gradually, the teddy bears she had collected."
It may be that I'm way off the mark. If so, could someone explain why this isn't an acceptable solution? Aquamonkey (talk) 02:56, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I personally find it a little clumsy, but sure, it communicates, and it avoids splitting. I think, though, it is an example of what Fowler meant when he said "it is to no avail..."  --Doric Loon (talk) 22:19, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that it's not aesthetically pleasing, but it does circumvent the issue at hand (that "moving the adverbial creates an ungrammatical sentence or changes the meaning"); it might be worthwhile to mention that use of punctuation is another way to 'solve' split infinitives of this sort. Do you think it's a point that should be made in the article? Aquamonkey (talk) 05:37, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

text: To be honest, I don't think it's a convincing enough example to be worth extending the article with it. Sorry. If you can find a more natural example where commas are a significant factor then I suppose it could be mentioned, but let's not go looking for new things to say - the existing debate is complex enough, and I am quite content to report what is already out there. --Doric Loon (talk) 12:19, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Avoiding Split Infinitives - The Teddy Bear Example 

message: "As a result, the debate took on a degree of passion which the bare facts of the matter never warranted." This *definitely* does not sound neutral to me. Suggest sentence rewrite.
:I agree.  Be bold! —JerryFriedman  (Talk) 18:50, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Non-Neutral POV 

message: If any joke were needed about how US-of-A-centric Wikipedia is, this article must be the supreme example.
The bulk of the article cites (US) American sources, lines of reasoning, origins to define this linguistic example of *English* usage.
I expect many Americans grow up believing that 'British English' is a corruption of the American original, even as they practise 'verbing their nouns', just as they grow up believing that the Enigma code was cracked by Americans, as explained by that authoritative historical authority: Hollywood.
If any article needs a root-and-branch rewrite, this is it.  Unless, of course, Wikipedia is intended as a US-centric work of semi-fiction.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.179.113.26 (talk) 01:27, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I'm British, and I think I've had a fairly heavy input into this article. The examples cited are from both sides of the Atlantic, so I don't think there's any systematic bias, and I doubt if more British cites would change the shape of the content very much. What is true is that the article does not go into the question of whether there are (or historically have been) BE/AE differences in usage. That is probably because we have not become aware of any rigorous linguistic research which provides any insights there, and we are not going to fill the article with our own guesses. But if you can find such research, a new section on British versus American usage is possible. --Doric Loon (talk) 13:29, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

text: If you think the article has too many examples of American uses of English, then the solution is to add more exampled of British usage. Both American and British usage of English are in fact English. If Wikipedia should not be the USAPedia, it should not be the UKPedia either.--RLent (talk) 20:23, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

text: As the article shows, split infinitives originated in Britain, and the first known objection to them was in America.  If you know or can find any sources showing that they're now less widely accepted in Britain than in America, please mention them here, or better, add them to the article. —JerryFriedman  (Talk) 20:07, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  English was invented in America, later exported to the colony, England 

message: I have just deleted the paragraph on the theory of Old French origins. (Sorry, I forgot to put an edit summary, but the explanation is here.) I actually wrote this section, based on my memory of things I had read, but I have never found a source and as we discussed above a couple of months back, without a source the section ought to go. I am copying it here, for the record, and because I think it's still interesting, and it can go back in if somebody finds the necessary citations. Here is the deleted text:
::Lastly, historical linguists have speculated that its origins may lie in Old French. The split infinitive seems to have appeared after the Norman Conquest, when English came into contact with Old French. It is not found in other Germanic languages, except modern Swedish, in which it is an independent development; German still does not permit an adverb to fall between an infinitive and its particle (preposition). However, a construction which is similar, at least superficially, can be found in French and other Romance languages. Compare modern German, French, and English:
:::Ich beschließe, etwas nicht zu tun.
::::I decide not to do something.
:::Je décide de ne pas faire quelque chose.
::::I decide to not do something.
::Thus it might be argued that the English split infinitive ("I decide to not do something") may have arisen under the influence of French. However, grammarians of the Romance languages do not use the term "split infinitive" to describe the phenomenon in those languages, since there the preposition is not considered a part of the infinitive form, and despite the surface-level similarity there are significant syntactical differences between the English and French constructions.
--Doric Loon (talk) 13:37, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: As I said before, I think that as things stand, taking out that paragraph improves the article, so I'm glad you did it.  But it would be good to find a source when possible. —JerryFriedman  (Talk) 22:23, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: User Wran has twice reinstated this, obviously in good faith. I suspect he thought my deletion was ill considered or vandalism. That is my fault - I forgot to give the deletion an edit summary first time round. It was me who originally wrote this section, and early on I defended it when it was challenged, but over half a decade I have failed to find sources confirming what I thought I knew, and I have come round to the view that we can't sustain the claim, so I have deleted it myself. I am delighted that Wran thinks it's useful material: he obviously has the same instinct I have. If he can prove to us that it is more than instinct, I will be very happy indeed. --Doric Loon (talk) 19:34, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deleting Old French theory 

message: Is this now getting overrun with WP:TRIVIA? I'm suggesting a heavy trim but, as I'm not a contributor with a close knowledge of the topic, I'm asking for other users' views. --Old Moonraker (talk) 08:14, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Popular culture section 

message: The section “Famous Split Infinitives” contained a paragraph saying “The oath of office of the President of the United States includes the text ‘to faithfully execute.’” This is factually incorrect: the language of the oath, as specified in the U. S. Constitution, actually says “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States...” There is no split infinitive; I have removed the paragraph.
Dodiad (talk) 23:46, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with this deletion. I'm glad to see it gone, as I always thought it much too speculative. However in fairness to Wragge, who added this on 19 Feb 2009, what he actually wrote was: Steven Pinker traced Chief Justice Roberts' 2009 presidential inauguration oath recitation error to the "shibboleth" against "split verbs", particularly the "myth" that it is "impossible to split an infinitive". Somebody quite recently though that should be clarified and added a wrong explanation. What Wragge (Pinker) was saying was that a schooling which makes somebody allergic to "to faithfully execute" can cause them to stumble over "will faithfully execute". That IS a plausible explanation of what happened, especially if you compare it with our example from transformational grammar further up the article. But I'm not sure it is really helpful here. --Doric Loon (talk) 08:36, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  No spit infinitive in presidential oath of office 

message: Is it just me, or is this definition in the very first sentence in the article somewhat too restrictive? Split infinitives are not unique to English (though I don’t know of any other language that’s made such a kerfuffle about them). The Norse languages (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Faeroese, and Icelandic) all have split infinitives as well.
Should the article not rather say that, “a split infinitive is a grammatical construction found in some languages, including English”, And preferably also give a few examples of split infinitives in some of these other languages? Kokoshneta (talk) 17:34, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The article does mention the Scandinavian languages further down. But I am not sure that it is appropriate to lump them under this term, unless linguists working on those languages use it. I have heard the term used to describe a parallel construction in French, but French specialists complained that this is Anglo-Saxon colonial thinking, and that English analysis should not be imported into French. Before you add anything about Swedish, we need to know that that will not be met with a similar objection. --Doric Loon (talk) 21:55, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  “A split infinitive is an English-language grammatical construction”? 

message: Please say more about "to not VERB" construct, especially whether it is valid or invalid.
VictorPorton (talk) 19:38, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the article already makes clear that there is no question of the construction being "invalid", but that some people don't like the example with "not". If you are looking for advice, I would say don't use it unless you don't care that some readers will think it's ugly. But if you like it, don't let anyone tell you it's forbidden. --Doric Loon (talk) 21:58, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please say more about "to not VERB" 

message: She decided to get gradually rid of the teddy bears she had collected.
Why is that described as awkward and unwieldy? It has a natural flow to it, or hasn't it? Why should "get rid of" need to stick together? Maybe, though, it's because I am German that I have no problem to say, for instance, "every Sunday Peter went with his wife, three children and elderly parents for three hours for a walk."--217.251.74.227 (talk) 16:44, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Tut mir Leid, but I think it really is because you're German. --Doric Loon (talk) 12:46, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

text: Maybe some people—such as Larry Trask, who invented that example—disagree with you on the potential of commas.  To me it doesn't sound quite as bad with the commas, but it still sounds pretty bad. —JerryFriedman  (Talk) 18:19, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

text: Yes.  The definitions in the article, and all others that I've seen, don't mention commas, which I take to mean that the commas don't matter to whether it's a split infinitive. —JerryFriedman  (Talk) 18:19, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  On the presented example 

message: I was surprised that there were no examples of how you'd otherwise write those sentences in such a way that would still convey the same meaning without the split infinitive. I mean it is written in such a way that its use sounds problematic but there is no clear reason as to why that is. Methylman251 (talk) 18:09, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: erm ... there's nothing wrong with it, the article does describe some of the objections. Is there any particular sentence you think would be difficult to rewrite? pablo 21:21, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

text: The article is underdeveloped—there are lots of examples out there of how to rewrite to avoid the split infinitive, and tehre are also counterexamples showing where the split infinitive is required (unless the entire sentence is recast, which is what a prescriptionist would resort to rather than asnswer your question).  The article is underdeveloped—hopefully a motivated volunteer with good sources will beef it up. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 21:48, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: So aside from grammatical snobbery, whats wrong with it?

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hi all. In a discussion at Talk:Linguistic prescription, User Curly Turkey pointed to a new book by Ammon Shea which has a section on the split infinitive in chapter 4, available here. It was published just over a year ago. Shea gives us a good independent confirmation of quite a few things, including the disapperance of the split infinitive in early modern times and its meteoric rise in the 19th century. Good to see the the overall picture we present is confirmed. However, he has a rabbit to pull out of his hat: he writes that, whereas the 1834 text was previously believed to be the earliest prohibition, he has found an earlier one, John Comly's English grammar, made easy to the teacher and pupil, 1803. He quotes this as saying 'An adverb should not be placed between a verb of the invinitive mood and the preposition to which governs it; as "Patiently to wait"; "Quietly to hope."' There is a scan of an 1823 edition of Comly here: it's on page 110. It's quite an interesting new discovery which will require some minor changes in our article. --Doric Loon (talk) 06:01, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  John Comly 

message: ... or 'To gob oldly' as it would be transformed into.
If a split infinitive 'sounds better' than the words re-placed, and does not give rise to ambiguity, then it is right.
Continuing from the 'gradually' section - 'The bishop gave the elephant the bun' - adding the word 'only' in each possible different place changes the meaning of the sentence entirely. Does this phenomenon have a name? 193.132.104.10 (talk) 13:27, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  To boldly go 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: It was announced on BBC Radio 4 today (September 25 2017) that a study by Robbie Love, a Ph. D. student at the University of Lancaster, indicated that split infinitives are now seen as acceptable English. This could go in the article. Vorbee (talk) 17:05, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Robbie Love's study

message: The concept that underlies this article is well established, but the title is a relic of fossilized taxonomy and the definition inadequately states what the relevant concept entails, i.e.:
*1. In a so-called "split infinitive," the infinitive is not split; rather, the to-infinitive phrase is split.
*2. The concept doesn't involve "a word or phrase (that) comes between the to and the bare infinitive of the to form of the infinitive verb." Canonically speaking, the infinitive verb isn't bare given the premise that the topic relates to a to-infinitive phrase.
I believe a better title is Split to-infinitive phrase, and that a better definition is, "The term, split to-infinitive phrase, relates to an instance in which a word or phrase interposes the to particle and the infinitive verb that comprise a to-infinitive phrase. IMHO, the definition more cogently reflects modern lexical usage.
Note to editors and/or to prospective contributors: 
Although I own the copyright to the original but heretofore unpublished definition as provided above, I hereby permit anyone to emend this article with the abovementioned recommendations. Accordingly, any consequent claim that my definition is a plagiary from Wikipedia would be unfounded. Peace. Kent Dominic 01:29, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Notwithstanding my prior thoughts, I don't recommend deleting the Split infinitive page. I believe it's incumbent not to lose the etymology that the split infinitive term entails even as we strive to provide a modern sense of its the underlying concept. Accordingly, I urge anyone who knows the Wikipedia formatting mechanisms to keep the split infinitive page along with only the following definition: " Split infinitive is an early 19th century term for split to-infinitive phrase."  (Note: I own the copyright to that original but heretofore unpublished definition as stated, but I hereby permit Wikipedia editors/contributors to use it on this site.) The contents of this new split to-infinitive phrase article should include what currently appears on the split infinitive page albeit with each reference to "split infinitive" being replaced with the "split-to-infinitive phrase." Kent Dominic 02:30, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  This is an antiquated title and conflated definition 

message: I notice that the article keeps saying that you can't "split" a Latin or Greek infinitive because it's one word.
Well, I understand that, when it comes to simple active verbs like bibere, or even an irregular, nontransitive verb (esse).
And it's a very long time since I took high school Latin, BUT--
aren't there some more complex infinitives, say in the passive voice, or maybe subjunctives or something?
How about "to be destroyed"?  Delenda esse, right?  How about "to be destroyed right away"?  "Delenda subito esse"— quod sic vel nihil?47.33.89.111 (talk) 21:25, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: REALLY interesting. Would be even more interesting if you can find an authentic example in classical literature rather than one you have made up. It's not quite the same, because we are not talking about a particle / marker / vestigial preposition before a noun phrase like in the English "to". In English you can also say "to be immediately destroyed", and that doesn't normally count as a split infinitive. But still... --Doric Loon (talk) 20:40, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  I think there ARE split infinitives in Latin 

message: The last sentence in the Current Views section is:In an example drawn from the British National Corpus, the use of to not be against not to be is only 0.35% (from a total of 3121 sampled usages).
Do you understand that? I don't. Is 'to not be' found 0.35% of the time? It's not clear to me, and there is no reference to check. 
MarkinBoston (talk) 13:21, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: @MarkinBoston: Should be clearer now. See the most recent edit. Kent Dominic·(talk) 14:04, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Current Views questions 

message: Omission of classist exclusionism in "formal" language is a denial of the basic purpose of communication and the malignancy of ornate or "dog whistle-style" grammar; for instance, if I were to say "This page is a demonstration of how to malignantly disenfranchise those not included by indoctrination the rules imposed by exhorbitantly wealthy institutions and their donators with profit and power as a motive," I would have wordily indicated my meaning with painful clarity. Enjoy all those adjectives.
Press that revert button with maximum embarrassment regarding your humanity. Or don't. I can cite examples, but you already know them.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.88.18.18 (talk) 09:08, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intentional(?) Classist Omission of the Clear Communication Inherent in Common Usage of Words and Grammar