Split infinitives

The infinitive of a verb is purely its most basic form and the one that can be found in the dictionary with no subject indicated. In English it always follows the word to e.g. to do, to play, to sing etc. A split infinitive is an infinitive in which the word to is separated from its verb by other words e.g. instead of saying I decided never to work we say I decided to never work. Traditionally spilt infinitives have been fought by linguists for centuries and considered grammatically incorrect but today most of them have agreed split infinitives are allowed in both writing and speech. Hurray! No need to go through writing some oddly shaped sentences in order to avoid the split. There was no rational basis and no justification for anyone to forbid splitting infinitives since not only in spoken language but sometimes even in written English it is so much clearer and natural to do so. Bear in mind, however, split infinitives should be avoided in formal writing unless the alternative seems too awkward. Normally we move the offending word so that it comes either before or after the infinitive.

My mum told me to quickly open the window.

My mum told me to open the window quickly.

You used to secretly message me.

You used to message me secretly.

In some cases, it is extremely odd to avoid splitting the infinitive and it’s much better to stick to the version with the split. In fact there are a few writers who have stated that in certain cases avoiding the split infinitive is impossible and that some modifiers must separate the to from the verb e.g. That was the only way to more than double his salary.