How to Fix a Split Infinitive

What Happened to My Infinitive?

A split infinitive is a common grammatical mistake that can be hard for writers to spot. Many people think they are not a big deal, but they can often have a major impact on your writing and make it hard for a reader to understand what you have to say. Take, for example, this sentence:

I like to on a hot day eat a lot of ice cream.

Did you have to read it twice to be clear what it was saying? I know I did. But let's make just a little adjustment:

On a hot day, I like to eat a lot of ice cream.

All I did was move a few words around (and add a comma), but this sentence is way easier to read on the first attempt. So what did I do? I fixed the split infinitive.

What Is an Infinitive?

Before we can tackle split infinitives, we need to deal with a more basic question: what in the world is an infinitive? An infinitive, simply put, is a combination of the word 'to' and a verb that is used as a noun, adverb, or adjective. So, in our example from above, 'to eat' is the infinitive. In this instance, it is acting as an adverb because it is modifying the main verb, 'like,' but infinitives can also be used as nouns:

He hated to fly.

And they can be used as adjectives:

She lacked the power to resist.

In an infinitive you are always going to have two parts: the 'to' and the verb. It is best to keep them together because when you split them up, confusion can reign.

Fixing Split Infinitives

Now that we know what split infinitives are, it is best to get in the habit of avoiding them in your writing. But we all split infinitives in writing, especially in early drafts. So, it is best to learn how to fix them when they do inevitably pop up. The first step is identifying the two parts of the infinitive. Try to do so in this sentence:

Writers should learn to not split infinitives.

The infinitive in this sentence is 'to split' and, as you can see, it has itself been split by the word 'not.' But now that we have identified the infinitive, we are halfway done. Now all we need to do is reword the sentence so as to keep 'to split' together:

Writers should learn not to split infinitives.

Our infinitive has been surgically repaired!

Are Split Infinitives So Bad?

While writing teachers spent many decades railing against the split infinitive, many modern writing teachers and linguists have pointed out that they often do not negatively affect meaning and can actually be preferable. They love to point out that one of the most famous lines in TV and movie history is a split infinitive:

To boldly go where no man has gone before.

An old-fashioned writing teacher would have told Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, to revise his line to something like this:

To go boldly where no man has gone before.

But it just doesn't have the same ring to it, does it?

Nevertheless, as we saw in our opening example, split infinitives can cause confusion, especially when the split is longer than a single word. Even with single words, it is often easy to move a few words around and avoid splitting the infinitive. When writing formally, such as in school assignments, it is usually best to avoid them.