THE SPLIT INFINITIVE

Even the best speakers and writers are in the habit of placing a
modifying word or words between the _to_ and the remaining part of the
infinitive. It is possible that such will come to be looked upon in time
as the proper form but at present the splitting of the infinitive is
decidedly wrong. "He was scarcely able _to_ even _talk_" "She commenced
_to_ rapidly _walk_ around the room." "_To have_ really _loved_ is better
than not _to have_ at all _loved_." In these constructions it is much
better not to split the infinitive. In every-day speech the best speakers
sin against this observance.

In New York City there is a certain magistrate, a member of "the 400,"
who prides himself on his diction in language. He tells this story: A
prisoner, a faded, battered specimen of mankind, on whose haggard face,
deeply lined with the marks of dissipation, there still lingered faint
reminders of better days long past, stood dejected before the judge.
"Where are you from?" asked the magistrate. "From Boston," answered the
accused. "Indeed," said the judge, "indeed, yours is a sad case, and yet
you don't seem _to_ thoroughly _realise_ how low you have sunk." The man
stared as if struck. "Your honor does me an injustice," he said bitterly.
"The disgrace of arrest for drunkenness, the mortification of being
thrust into a noisome dungeon, the publicity and humiliation of trial in
a crowded and dingy courtroom I can bear, but to be sentenced by a Police
Magistrate who _splits his infinitives_--that is indeed the last blow."


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